Masterminds (4/5 Stars)

To call “Masterminds” a movie “based on a true story,” streches that line about as far as it can go. Truth may have provided the basic premise: in 1997 a man named David Ghannt, an employee of the Loomis Fargo armored truck company, stole $17 million in cash from the warehouse he worked at. Everything else seems entirely made up for laughs with a blatant disregard as to whether the audience would believe it had actually happened. In fact, the movie plays like they just assumed we wouldn’t care. It was funny so I really didn’t care.

Take one scene foe example: After the robbery, the plan is for David Ghannt (played by Zach Galifinakis) to immediately run away to Mexico. To help his escape, he stuffs $20,000 in cash into his underwear to the point where it noticeably bulges out in all directions. Also he needs a disguise. So he is given a platinum blonde shoulder length wig and yellow contacts with feline pupils. It’s pretty funny but I’m quite certain the real David Ghannt didn’t try to get through airport security in that manner.

The movie was directed by Jared Hess (Napolean Dynamite, Nacho Libre) and arrives in theaters a year late due to the bankruptcy of its parent company. Its delay has two main consequences. One is that it represents a too-late starring vehicle for Zach Galifinakis whose star power has ebbed significantly from its peak in the early 2010s. He hasn’t headlined a movie since 2013. On the other hand, it catches on the upswing the growing star of Kaitlyn “Crazy Eyes” McKinnon, who in a supporting part shows off her innate ability to be funny in every frame shes in. A year ago, before Ghostbusters and Hillary Clinton’s endless campaign (McKinnon plays Clinton on “Saturday Night Live”) my reaction may have been “Who is she?” but now it is “Oh it’s her!”

The movie would have you believe David Ghannt did the heist to win the love of Kelly Campbell, a former co-employee, here played by Kristin Wiig. Who knows if that is true, but it certainly makes Ghannt look more pathetic, a good move playing to the talent of Zach Galifinakis. The brain behind the heist is a man named Steve Chambers (played by Owen Wilson). Owen Wilson proves his stock utility as reliably affable. Steve Chambers apparently had the brilliant idea to make Ghannt do all the hard work, send him to Mexico, and then pay a hit man (played by Jason Sudeikis) to kill Ghannt. That sounds like pretty dark stuff. Owen Wilson plays him like you know it’s all really sad, but we got to do this, so let’s just get it over with and remain friends with everyone who is still alive. Playing Chamber’s wife is Mary Elizabeth Ellis (the waitress from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), an actress adept at playing white trash and well suited to her role. She looks and sounds ridiculous. One of the first things Chambers and her do upon receiving their money is to get dental braces.

The only person miscast here is Jason Sudeikis. His hit man is ridiculous. For instance, upon purchasing guns, he decides to go for the 1700s musket that he has to pour gunpowder into. He’s that type of guy. The problem is Sudeikis neither looks nor acts anything like anybody actually tough. It’s too cartoonish and this character would have been better had someone like Liam Neeson or Danny Trejo been cast.

The movie, like many movies, perhaps leans too much on spectacle. Zach Galifinakis’ trip to Mexico is littered with many jokes that could be filed under the ‘funny hat’ category. It’s never not funny but also not particularly memorable either. And the climax of the story is too big to truly ground the comedy. The Chambers family in an act of profound stupidity, that is never truly mined for its great potential, throw a gigantic redneck party entitled “Neptune’s Conch” in their new McMansion. The FBI stake it out in one plotline and Zach Galifinakis in another plotline dresses like James Bond in order to infiltrate and rescue his now kidnapped love. This is one of those times when you wonder what these obviously talented people would have come up with had they not been given such a large budget to spend on gigantic spectacle. “Ghostbusters” earlier this year had the same sort of problem in its climax. The movie slipped into action movie territory upon the greased slide of easy money when it should have been reaching an emotional climax in that higher territory where the best comedy resides. In effect, the ending is weaker than the beginning or middle.

Still it’s a good movie. It tries to deliver laughs a minutes and much more often than not succeeds.

War Dogs (4/5 Stars)

Miles Teller does not understand why a twenty-something guy like him, who was a physical therapist a few months ago, is making a living running guns for the United States' war in Iraq. It’s like this, Jonah Hill, his childhood friend and current employer explains: Remember little league where at the end of the year they would only give out one trophy to the Most Valuable Player. Then one year a parent complained and so they had to start giving out trophies out to everyone. Even the fat retarded kid got a trophy. Well the Bush-Cheney people fucked up big. When Halliburton got all the big contracts for the Iraq War, all the other mid-range suppliers’ strarted screaming unfair. So now there is this website that anybody and I mean anybody can bid for contracts on and that’s how we are in this business.

“So you’re the fat retarded kid?” asks Miles.

“Dude, I’m the fattest and most retarded kid there is!” exclaims Jonah.

Such is the backdrop for this stranger-than-fiction tale from director Todd Phillips. Phillips, known as a comedy director (Old School, The Hangover) is expanding his creative scope here and make no mistake, although “War Dogs” has a lot of laughs, it is drama, and a very well made one at that.

The screenplay was co-written by Phillips and Steven Chin. Chin has an interesting story. In his young twenties he became interested in doing a story about two young arms runners in Iraq. So he went to Iraq to interview them and get their story rights. This story isn’t exactly about those two guys but Chin’s experiences, and his innate ability to understand the type of person who would go half way across the world on a whim in search of forturne, lends this story the its impressive amount of rich contextual detail.

There is nothing I like more than a story that is told by people who seem to really know what they are talking about. “War Dogs” is that type of movie. When Miles and Jonah (I’m writing this review so late that I have forgotten the names of the main characters) need to solve problems, they need to solve very specific ones. For instance, they have a contract to deliver a certain amount of Remington handguns to  a particular general in Iraq. The Italian legislature has just passed a bill outlawing the selling of arms to Iraq. So Miles and Jonah (under threat of never getting business again if they do not deliver) need to redirect their Italian handguns to Jordan, bribe the local officials, and then personally drive the hand guns through Anbar province to Baghdad.

When I speak of the power of details in strong action storytelling this is a good example. The nitty-gritty down to earth stuff lends suspense to a journey regular action blockbusters can’t deliver even with the help of giant robots and the destruction of entire cities. And you might learn something too like bribable soldiers like Marlboro cigarettes.

At its heart, “War Dogs” in is a story about a small business start-up and has all the hallmarks of the trials and tribulation of a good business tale. It has unpaid subcontractors, personal disputes between partners, the joy of success, and the business deal that goes wrong and then goes really wrong. This movie could maybe have been made about any small business but it says a lot about movies, and storytelling in general, that business movies are generally only about two types of businesses: Drugs and Guns. Businesses are perhaps inherently boring or put another way, if they go well, should be boring and so most businesses in movies generally have outside action to enliven the experience of them. How many times have you seen a movie about a bank robber? And how many times have you seen a movie about a bank manager that operates a bank efficiently and competently? That's my point.

As a member of a two man small business, it was fun for me to see a movie like this with my employer. It felt very right. I mean besides the fact that Jonah, the boss in the movie, is a sociopath. My boss isn’t like that. That's obvious enough. I'm not sure why I even mentioned it.

However, going back to Jonah Hill. He is great in this movie. There are certain actors that can really stretch a performance to hit as many notes as possible and in this movie there is not a scene that Jonah is not doing something interesting or funny in it. It is odd that I need to say this next thing given that he already has two Oscar nominations, but Jonah Hill is a great actor with considerable range. Given his girth, there is really not so many other actors like him that can fully supersede the comedy genre and become full-fledged dramatic actors. But he can do it and I look forward to see him do it for a while in the future. (On an irrelevant note: He has successfully gained back the entirety of the weight he impressively lost over the past couple years. That's too bad. I bet he's really struggling about it.)

Bradley Cooper also shows up as a heavy dramatic presence in this movie. It is a role I haven’t seen him play before but he does a good job at being scary enough. My favorite line, “I am not a bad man, but in my line of business, I sometimes have to ask myself: what would a bad man do?”

Ghostbusters (4/5 Stars)

This Ghostbusters is not a remake (in which the same characters do the same things) or a sequel (in which the same characters do different things) but a reboot. It has the same name and the same overall structure but different characters that do different things. For example, in the first Ghostbusters (1984), the crew look for office space and stumble upon an old fire station in Tribeca, New York. The place is a piece of junk in a terrible neighborhood but it is thankfully cheap enough for them. In the reboot, the new crew looks for office space and is shown the same fire station. This time they are told it costs $21,000 a month in rent.

It’s a good joke and one this movie tells many times. However, doing so reveals the weirdness of the movie. See if you can wrap your head around this. In the 2016 version of Ghostbusters, the 1984 Ghostbusters don’t exist. That in and of itself is normal for a reboot. What is weird is that the reboots wrings every callback opportunity possible out of the earlier film. Some examples: The Ghostbusters logo is “serendipitiously” created by a graffiti artist, the original cast shows up in cameos and quote the original’s catchphrases, and a giant stay puff marshamallow man is fought in the climatic scene. The movie treats these situations as if the movie knows about the original film, but the characters in the 2016 version don’t know about the original film. So there’s a disconnect between what the audience experiences and what the characters experience because the audience remembers the thing that is being called back in a scene but none of the characters in that scene remember it. Like I said, weird.

It is fun to hear all these callbacks but I would posit that it hurts this movie’s ability to be a stand-alone movie because to understand these many jokes one would need to see the original movie. A viewer who has not seen the original would probably be confused as to why the movie would make such a big deal about a callback moment when the characters themselves, by definition, can’t. To draw a contrast, take the movie “Creed.” That was a reboot too in a way. But the new character existed in the same time universe as the original so when it made callbacks it made sense for the characters to feel the weight of them. Those moments do not work in this reboot (if you take the time to think about it) and that is this Ghostbusters oddest and biggest mistake.

It’s an odd mistake because this movie probably didn’t need the callbacks and nostaligic jokes. This movie is a “Bridesmaids” reunion, a movie that will be a classic once I convince everyone. It is directed by Paul Feig and stars both Kristin Wiig and Melissa McCarthy. Kristin Wiig continues to impress. She has been cast in this movie as the straight man (she is a scientist at Columbia trying to distance herself from a ghost book she co-wrote with Melissa so she can gain tenure) so she has not as many opportunities to be funny but that doesn’t stop her from having the movie’s funniest moment in a restaurant freaking out in front of the mayor. She should be funnier more times but this is not really her fault, as I will explain later.

Melissa McCarthy continues to be not as funny to me as she apparently is to everyone else. I would compare her to Zach Galifinakis. She rose to stardom in a very well written supporting role, which has been hard to translate into mainstream comedic stardom. What seems to happen, just like Zach, is that most of her funny moments come about not through chracter revelations but from non-sequitor asides, quite a few of which distract from the narrative flow of the movie. There is one more thing and this actually does happen to do with her gender. Melissa McCarthy is fat but won’t do fat jokes. This distinguishes her from every male of ample gut that calls himself a comedian. Her writers won’t do it also (here that is Katie Dippold and Paul Feig) and it leads to some unbelievable situations, like in “The Heat” where she is cast as the sexually vigorous and attractive one opposite to Sandra Bullock of all people. Unfortuately for our politically correct culture, fat jokes will always be funny because (obesity epidemic due to subsidized corn syrup excepted) it is fundamentally true that they reveal character (unlike say racial jokes or misogynistic jokes). And jokes that reveal character are and will always be the best ones. Melissa McCarthy’s pride ignores this to her own peril as a comedian. It is about time for her to own it and join the big boys of comedy (Rodney Dangerfield, John Candy, John Belushi, Zero Mostel, Jack Black, Jim Gaffigan, Jason Alexander, to name but a few).

The revelation in this movie is Kate McKinnon. She is hilarious. I’ve known her a little bit from Saturday Night Live (she is probably going to blow up big time impersonating Hillary Clinton this fall) but have never seen her in a movie. She reminds me of the early freewheeling zaniess of Jim Carrey in a 5’5” frame. Making her more fun is that she is in charge of the really dangerous equipment. She does a dance at one point with blowtorches. Classic McKinnon.

The fourth is Leslie Jones. She fills the Ernie Hudson role and then some. In fact she shows up earlier, has more jokes, and says more smart things (she reads lots of nonfiction and knows all sorts of things about the city) than Hudson ever did in the original. It doesn’t matter. This Ghostbusters, unlike the first, is getting shit for not giving the black woman a role as a scientist, as opposed to the (apparently undignified) job as an MTA worker. I’m not sure what Ernie Hudson was doing in the first Ghostbusters. He shows up three quarters of the way through and then doesn’t really do anything in it besides postulate about the end-of-the-world, but if he was absent from that one and Leslie Jones (who is only here because of Ernie’s presence in the first) was absent from this one, the only thing missing would be the liberal outrage.

(I’ve been trying to figure out why this sort of controversy irks me so much. I can only ascribe it to what I would consider an unfounded and pathetic sense of entitlement amongst those that are outraged (not just black people of course, I remember Mahnola Dargis of the NYTimes complaining about it too.) Its unfounded because to tell a good story, even one with paranormal elements, it helps to set it in a realistic context. I think it is fair to say that a black person in NYC in 2016 is more likely to work for the MTA than for Columbia University as a scientist. If that is a problem, it is a problem for the real world. It is not a detriment to Ghostbusters to merely reflect reality. That is to say the solution to this problem should be to fix it in the real world, not insist that a movie project falseness. Its pathetic because (and I shudder to accuse people of this) it insists that a person’s self-esteem comes from how they see other people who look like them are portrayed in movies. It should be a basic thing taught to all five-year-olds that movies should not dictate how one feels about themselves. To say Ghostbusters, of all movies, made you feel less than, well, that’s just, it’s just one of the saddest things I could possibly hear someone say.)

The largest difference between the original and the reboot has to be the extraordinary progression of digital effects in movies. The comparison is a good reminder that being able to do anything with computers does not necessarily make it better than the old cheap way. The special effects in the original were crappy but they had thought in them and quite a few of them were jokes. In the reboot, the effects are so big that it is damn near impossible for them to be comedic. There is a big action sequence at the end in which the ghosts of New York City past attack the four ghostbusters. It is notable for its lack of laughs while being great to look at. Roger Ebert made the observation that the original movie was an exception to the general rule that big special effects can wreck a comedy. He explained:

“Special effects require painstaking detail work. Comedy requires spontaneity and improvisation; or at least that’s what is should feel like, no matter how much work has gone into it…rarely has a movie this expensive provided so many quotable lines.”

The suits in charge of the reboot have, like so many recent movies, used big budget spectacle, nostalgic throwbacks, and political correctness (where are the ghost hookers of Time Square in the climatic battle? Why are they fighting pilgrims instead?) as a crutch in the place of character, creativity, and originality. The tragedy is that all the ingredients for greatness are here but they have not been given space to breathe and grow. In the meantime it’s good enough. Perhaps the sequel will do a better job at making the apocalypse work for the comedy and not the other way around. At least there should be less callbacks.

Finding Dory (3/5 Stars)

“Finding Dory” is special in that special way that special people are special. It isn’t great but it has a lot of heart and its not mean or bad in anyway so what’s the harm in liking it.

It is a spinoff from one of Pixar’s best movies, “Finding Nemo.” In that movie a very worried father fish, Marlin, voiced by Albert Brooks, is searching for his lost son Nemo. On his journey he meets his polar opposite, a fish named Dory, voiced by Ellen Degeneres. Dory had a personality quirk that was all the rage in the early aughts: she suffered from the inability to create new memories. Yes, like that guy in “Memento” and Drew Barrymore in “Fifty First Dates.” She provided a delightful foil to the always anxious Marlin what with her blissfully optimistic mantra “Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming” and her complete inability to remember what her problems were or even what was Marlin’s mission.

She was a great sidekick. She is not so great a main character. For one thing, her character needs a reworking that doesn’t exactly fit with what we have been previously told about her. That is for the plot to kick in she has to first remember a rather big that she forgot: she had lost her way from her parents when she was young. Why she remembers this now and some other things at various times when she can’t remember anything else strains the suspension of disbelief. People pointed out that the main character in “Memento” implausibly remembered that he couldn’t create new memories. Dory has that one memory quirk as well and then a bunch of other memory quirks that surface up continually when…well whenever the story needs her to remember something for it to progress forwards.

This doesn’t happen too much but that in and of itself is also a problem. For Dory needs to find her parents somehow, and the only way she can do that plausibly is to simplistically bumble into them. So the story structure reflects that and in doing so is especially linear and almost entirely predictable. The problem solving required is at minimum capacity otherwise Dory would be completely helpless or not Dory at all.

It does not take many twists and turns to get Dory very close to where she needs to go and that is an Ocean Aquarium that rehabilitates injured fish before releasing them back in the wild. The nature of this aquarium seems to reflect the politically correct view towards aquariums nowadays in that they are more like prisons for the large animals in them than homes. Thus this aquarium has at its stated goal to rehabilitate injured fish and then at some point release them back into the wild. Good, now we can look at fish behind glass and not feel guilty about it.

At this aquarium she finds several “special” animals willing to help her. The best by far is a wily Octopus named Hank (played by Ed O’Neill of all people). Hank by and large solves the problem of how a fish can get around a big above ground place. He slithers along and camoflauges himself to fake out the humans. It is most definitely based on the true life notorious octopus that escaped from an aquarium via a drainage pipe a couple of years ago.

Other animals are more forgettable. Sometimes the most interesting thing about the character is who is ultimately voicing them. For instance, there are two sea lions voiced by Dominic West and Idris Elba, both of whom played main characters in “The Wire.” I got a kick out of that because I am a fan of “The Wire” That is to say my pleasure in watching them here is derivative as opposed to original. That is especially true of the disembodied cameo of Sigourney Weaver who introduces herself over the Aquarium loudspeaker as Sigourney Weaver and continues to provide information about the park as Sigourney Weaver. I wonder if small children several decades born after the apex of the Aliens franchise will know who Sigourney Weaver is? I liked it sure but that has very little to do with the substance of this movie. I just happen to like Sigourney Weaver.

I expect the message of the movie is the most commendable thing about it. It’s very kind and nice and comfort food. I hate to be a total downer and say that the idea that every one is special in their own special way and that certain specialness makes them useful in ways that other not special people cannot be is not entirely correct. But really think about it. Dory’s special ability (or disability more like it) to optimistically and impulsively act upon no evidence (because she can’t remember any) is not an entirely special quality. Her success, let’s be frank, is mostly luck. She could just as easily be someone's lunch many many times. 

I really don’t think I’m missing the point. I get the point. I understand why parents would like to tell their children that everything will be okay no matter how badly their genes have failed them. I just don’t happen to agree with it. I much prefer a movie like Pixar’s “Inside Out” that has the emotional maturity to see life with clear eyes. “Finding Dory” is all fluff.

The Lobster (4/5 Stars)

“The Lobster” is such an original movie that to describe it would necessarily require a comprehensive rehashing of the plot. I simply cannot say it is like some other movie you know. But to not rehash the entire movie and only focus on the beginning would also be to sell itself short because one of the more interesting characters (Rachel Weisz) is only introduced halfway through and what happens with her and the main character, i.e. the Lobster (Colin Farrell) is more interesting than what happens in the first half. But for the second part to make any sense, one needs to understand the first part, and I can’t do that without giving it all away. So just take my word for it: Rachel Weisz is great in this movie and I can’t tell you why.

It starts with The Lobster checking into the Hotel on the Seashore next to a Forest away from the City. He has been recently divorced. The Hotel, a creature of the State, will allow him to stay for 45 days to find himself a mate. If he doesn’t they will turn him into an animal. He gets to choose the animal. He chooses Lobster. It isn’t a completely arbitrary choice. As he explains the animal will live a long time and he likes the sea. So it works in a way. And that in a nutshell is how this movie works (more a miracle the more I think about it). It chooses seemingly arbitrary and bizarre rules to follow and then with a totally straight face follows them without flinching. The result is an sincere, engrossing, and surprisingly consistent romantic comedy. And it is a romantic comedy as strange as that may sound when applied to a movie such as this.

No State in the known world would ever force people to find a mate within 45 days before turning them into an animal. And that is likely because no state in the known world deals with the kind of hopelessly anti romantic people that inhabit this movie. Colin Farell along with his new guy friends John C. Reilly and Ben Whishaw do not want to be turned into animals. Neither do the females at the Hotel. But at the same time there seems to be an unwritten rule that couples need to have a unique trait in common. Ben Whishaw has a limp. John C. Reilly has a lisp. There is this really hot girl who eventually gets turned into a pony because she can’t find anyone else who has great hair.

The Hotel has seminars and mixers in which relationships are promoted in the least appetizing way possible. There is a rule against masturbating in the hotel and the maids, as part of their job desciption, are to dry hump the guests (but not to climax) in order to stimulate them to find mates amongst the other guests. As Colin Farrell understatedly intones, “Awful, just awful.”

If this is a satire on something I don’t know what that could possibly be and honestly I do not really care. I don’t want to think there is an agenda behind this movie. If there were it would be a stupid way to push it because nothing in here has anything to do with reality. The only way it works is by its own rules all by itself. And encapsulated as such, it sets its rules out clearly follows them steadfastly and exploits them for humorous and romantic effect.

To make matters more interesting, the outcasts of this mandatory romantic society are a guerilla band of loners who carry out terrorist missions targeted to break up the couples at the retreat. The guests at the hotel are given tranquilizer guns and every once in a while bussed to the woods where they can earn an extra day for each loner they capture. There is a heartless woman guest (played by Aggeliki Papoulia) that is particularly adept at hunting other human beings. She is at 158 days currently. Hilarity and Tragedy ensues when The Lobster tries to woo her by pretending to be heartless as well.

The movie is filled end to end with interesting details: for example when the loners celebrate they listen to electronic music with headphones. That way even when they are celebrating together they dance alone. And in the city, a person shopping alone can be stopped by the police and asked for their marriage certificate. The movie was directed by Yorgos Lathimos and also co-written by him. He is obviously a type of insane.

Anchoring the movie is Colin Farrell who has turned into a special actor. I remember him quite well as someone I would point out as rather bad (or at least miscast). He was doing these great epic roles (Alexandar, The New World, Miami Vice) and doing them, frankly, not so well. But then he had a career turnaround in “In Bruges,” in which he played a down and out suicidal loser who, quite importantly, had the same accent as his very own Irish brogue. It was a revelation. His true calling was not as blockbuster hero. It was as a loser and he has excelled in that role ever since. His turn in “True Detective: Season 2,” “Seven Psychopaths,” and most importantly this movie prove that he is at his best playing broken men. Colin Farrell brings a pathos and honest humor to this character that seems entirely tuned to him. This is his best role and I would argue an Oscar nomination for it.

Rachel Weisz, as we all know and I hope I have written about before, is great and a very big movie girlfriend of mine. I wish I could tell you what she does in this movie without giving away the last half of the movie except to say, like everything she does, it is perfect. (I never got to rave about her comedic performance in “The Brothers Bloom” but for fucks sake wasn’t that revelatory). She’s worthy of a great romantic gesture. I’ve said too much already.

John C. Reilly rises to the occasion again as a welcome competent face in a movie totally out there with no money backing it. I’m reminded a little bit of his work in “Cedar Rapids.” He is a great team player. Also there is Lea Seydoux playing against type as queen of the loners given she is currently one of the sexiest women in movies (Blue is the Warmest Color, Mission Impossible). Then there is Ben Whishaw who is also very good. Everybody in this movie, amazingly, is very good at playing people who do not resemble humans in a world that does not resemble reality. It’s great acting drawn from great directing and writing by Yorgos Lathimos who, as I related before, is probably insane. Anyway I vote for an Oscar Nomination for Best Original Screenplay, the key word being Original. Want a cold breath of fresh air in your movie going experience. Go see “The Lobster.”

Captain America: Civil War (4/5 Stars)

At least once a year I feel the need to point out the moral ambituity of large-scale action sequences in modern blockbusters, specifically the untold and unfelt thousands of deaths that necessarily must occur when entire cities are reduced to rubble. I had been crying in the wilderness to nobody in parituclar about this for so long that I expected that I would continue to do it indefinitely. Imagine my pleasant surprise then when Marvel’s new movie, “Captain America: Civil War” not only admits the reality of human collateral damage but makes it the focal conflict for the entire story.

It starts with a covert operation in an African country by Captain America, Black Widow, Hawk, and Scarlett Witch (new to me but apparently introduced before). A bad guy is trying to steal a biological weapon. The fight starts in a parking lot moves to an office building and finally ends in a crowded marketplace. The bad guy has a suicide bomb in which he means to kill everybody. Scarlett Witch, whose mutant power is to telekinesis, moves the bomb explosion from the marketplace to the air but miscalculates and ends up killing about fifteen people in an office building. The Avengers given that they are conducting vigilante military operations are held suspect for this outcome. A proposal is passed to give the United Nations oversight over the Avengers.

Iron Man, aka Tony Stark, feels guilty enough for this occurrence (The fifteen dead were charity workers although any fifteen dead people would have been good enough for me) to support the resolution. Captain America, coming out against democracy, believes that the resolution would stop him from taking action for or against whatever he deems himself to be important. It may be obvious whose side I am taking in this conflict. I’m with Iron Man all the way. Captain America apparently thinks he knows better than entire democratic societies. That is the sort of behavior that gives Freedom a bad name.

The amount of characters and superheroes already introduced in this umpteenth of Marvel movies makes listing all of them and the actors playing them time prohibitive, but they line up in equal numbers on each side. Thankfully Thor and The Hulk are somewhere else, as their presence would seriously tip the scale against the more destructible members of the Avengers. The action sequences are better and more entertaining than previous Marvel movies. This is because instead of relying on the spectactles getting bigger and more explosive, the superheroes fight themselves (and thus aren’t nameless pushovers) and thus humor and creativity have to be employed to make sure nobody gets embarrassed. The abandoned airport fight is especially good. Also, as I said before, no massive human collateral occurs. The result is a very enjoyable movie and my favorite Marvel movie so far.

Joining the Marvel universe for the first time is SpiderMan (the other two Sony franchises have not happened in this particular franchise) and Black Panther. Now this is a good opportunity for a compare and contrast between what is considered to be one of the most beloved characters of Marvel and what is sure to be the most boring.

Spiderman, aka Peter Parker, is a dorky teenager who lives with his Aunt May in Queens, New York. Black Panther is the handsome well-mannered prince of the aforementioned African nation. When Stan Lee created Spiderman, his stated intention was to give the character all the regular flaws a teenager generally has like immaturity, acne, and a hopeless crush on a girl. Such honesty and relatability became endearing pushing Spiderman to an upper echelons of popular superheroes. Black Panther, in contrast, seems to be a corporate marketing committee’s response to an outcry for political correctness. He stands in like Two-fer in “30 Rock” as proof that the corporation believes black people can be noble, properly educated, and not sidekicks. It is perhaps a good thing that the effort was made but the fact that they went about it in a way that crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s goes a long way in making the character generally unrelatable and almost as important, boring. He has no flaws and by the end of the movie his one conflict is resolved. I can’t imagine what will happen in the next movie that will allow the character to learn and grow in complexity. Perhaps he will join Thor battling interstellar ice monsters. Peter Parker as we all know has a long journey ahead of him since not incidentally he starts from a far humbler beginning.

(I doubt anyone else has noted this but the term ‘black panther’ refers to the militant wing of an oppressed poor minority group. Is it not culturally insensitive for a wealthy member of a ruling majority class to appropriate the moniker? Or does this not count because they are both black.)

But enough about this. I really liked the movie and would recommend it to anyone interested in seeing a blockbuster. The humor, the action, and most importantly the maturity set it apart from most others. Finally I have added the original Captain America movie to my DVD queue. For the first time I have wanted to see it and fill in that particular gap in my Marvel movie knowledge.

Everybody Wants Some!! (3/5 Stars)

In 1995, Director Richard Linklater came out with a movie called “Before Sunrise.” In this movie, a guy (played by Ethan Hawke) traveling through Europe asks a woman (Julie Delpy) who is traveling to Paris to get off the train with him in Vienna. His plane leaves the next morning and he does not have money for a room. Would she be interested in just roaming the city with him walking and talking for a night? She thinks about it and then gets off the train and they spend the night walking and talking.

Bullshit, right? Like on three levels. First level, what woman would get off a train with a complete stranger in a city where she knows nobody? That’s potentially dangerous and most women wouldn’t do it. Second level, what guy would propose this sincerely? Wouldn’t a normal guy assume that a normal woman would be creeped out by the proposal and consider it impolite to ask. Or would he not assume that the prospect of walking and talking (not even going to a bar or dinner because he has no money) would not be appetizing to a normal woman. Third reason, assuming they got off the train and spent the night together, who is actually interesting enough to carry on a decent conversation for at least ten hours straight. Who are these people?

Well, at least one of them was Richard Linklater. The movie is based off an experience he had during a trip from New York to Austin. He spent one entirely platonic night in Philadelphia with a woman just walking and talking before he left at sunrise. There are a lot of better directors working today than Richard Linklater but I seriously doubt any of them are as cool a person as he seems to be and if I could choose to strike up a conversation with any one of my favorite directors at a party I figure the best one ought to be Linklater. I can’t imagine him running out of interesting things to say.

“Everybody Wants Some!!” is another one of his movies like “Boyhood” and “Before Sunrise” that would be preposterous in its main characters “coolness” if it weren’t admittedly autobiographical. That is, if the main character here “Jake,” was supposed to be some normal guy, I wouldn’t believe it, but if Linklater says it is based on him, well, he did make “Waking Life,” so I guess it’s possible for a college baseball player to be this cool.

Jake (played by Blake Jenner) has just showed up to his college house. He’s not in the dorms as a Freshman because he has a scholarship to pitch for the very popular baseball team and with that scholarship comes the free housing off-campus (very cool). He is good looking (also cool) like every other guy in the all star baseball house (hot friends, add that to the cool) and at the baseball house party that night (parties are cool), he gets laid almost immediately (I told you he was cool).  

But this movie isn’t entirely about that. If it were, than Jake would be in danger of being a douchebag. But he’s not. He’s Richard Linklater. So in this baseball house are a lot of distinct personalities that are fun to hang out with and get to know. Jake, it turns out, is a sincere listener who essentially gets along with everyone and everyone gets along with him. The other pitcher is a wise fellow (curiously beyond his years really) who is great at casually philosophizing and smoking pot. The other guys are competitive but it would be weird if they weren’t, after all, this is an all-star sports team. And like most jocks I’ve known, they care quite a bit about winning but are as forgiving of slights made in competition. Case in point: there is another pitcher who is crazy unlikable and everyone teases him but it is unmistakable that they do not ostracize him from the team. (Actually in my experience getting along with jocks is easier than getting along with any other social group. Just show up, give 100%, and don’t complain. That’s really all there is to it.)

Another guy Jake spends a lot of time listening to is Finnegan (played by Glen Powell). His philosophy to life is illuminating. At the baseball house party the other players implore Jake to listen in on how Finnegan explains his playing style to a couple ladies. Now how a baseball player explains his playing style is code to explaining how he has sex. (It is assumed that the girls know this. I mean are they really at the baseball players house party to talk sports?) Anyway Finnegan explains that he doesn’t have the best bat, not that much of a heavy hitter, but he is a true team player, is smart on the field, and ready to help his mates out in a pinch. Classic curveball. Nice touch.  

Finnegan and Jake go to several parties over the weekend. The first is at a disco. The second is at a Country-Western bar. Then they help throw the baseball house party. Then they go to a punk rave. And finally Jake gets invited to a theater student’s party by leaving flowers and a poem on her door. He brings Finnegan and the other baseball players as well. Finnegan dresses up as a person who would fit in at all of these and instructs Jake to do as well. Jake asks at the punk rave, “aren’t we posers?” “No,” Finnegan explains, “it doesn’t count if you are doing it to hit on girls.” An eloquent philosophy and the way he practices it discounts the creepiness that other guys would not get away with. That is to say there might be a difference between changing your appearance and personality to trick a woman and take advantage of her and changing your appearance and personality because you are hoping to please a woman who would like you that way. Or at least the movie would like to think there is a difference. Or maybe this loophole only applies to Linklater who is much cooler than the rest of us.

The difference seems to be sincerity and given the types of movies Linklater has made for the last quarter century it should be fair to say that he treats people sincerely (sometimes to a fault, see “Slacker”). Perhaps we should at least take heart that at least once that attitude helped a guy get laid routinely. That is to say this nice guy never finished last. He wasn’t racing of course, that’s the whole point. But if he was racing, he wouldn’t have finished last. Not that he cared or we should either, but you know what I’m trying to say.

Knight of Cups (2/5 Stars)

I don’t like movies that require reading to understand it. I suspect “Knight of Cups” is that type of movie. Specifically it may have been a good idea to read “Pilgrim’s Progress.” It is quoted directly several times. Is this an adaptation of that book? I don’t know, maybe?

“Knight of Cups” was directed by Terrance Malick and ostensibly written by him as well. I say ‘ostensibly’ because the actors seem to be walking in and out of scenes improvising without a script. Malick consistently uses a narrative device somewhat unique to him throughout the film. You have seen him do it before in a movie like “The Thin Red Line.” He employs poetic voiceover over the eye of a wandering camera. It provides a celestial quality to a scene especially those that are hectic and that have the original audio cut from it. This worked so well in “The Thin Red Line,” because the underlying action was very easy to understand. In was a WWII movie that involved an army trying to take a Pacific Island. The voiceover commented on the scene but never needed to explain what was happening. The story was very clear in that respect. “Knight of Cups,” however (and Malick’s last two films as well “The Tree of Life” and “To the Wonder”) employs this device without the simple plotline and the effect is quite different. It feels like it is being used to cover up bad directing in the editing room. There are plenty of “scenes” in which actors walk around improvising dramatic situations in desperate need of some direction. Since everything is cut up and entwined with vines of excess cinematography and voiceover it is hard to tell what they scenes are about, but that may just be hiding the fact that they might not actually be about anything. This movie perhaps means something to Malick but he sure didn’t feel the need to explain it to me.

It’s a beautiful movie of course. The cinematographer is Emmanuel Lubezki, winner of the Academy Award three years in a row. His target this time is Los Angeles and the areas that surround it. The camera follows a writer, played by Christian Bale. He doesn’t look or act successful but apparently he very much is. He is invited and attends many gorgeous parties in lots of mansions. He spends time with an assembly line of models. Among them are Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Frieda Pinto, Imogen Potts, Teresa Palmer, and Isabel Lucas. And I haven’t mentioned yet the naked nameless ones. He has a manager that says something about making him richer than he already is.

Christian Bale does not particulary care about any of this and kind of walks about in a daze. That may indeed be Malick’s point: that this Hollywood lifestyle of riches and easy sex with beautiful women is ultimately unfulfilling. However that brings to mind the biggest question every critic who has seen the movie has had to ask: That is, if Terrance Malick does not like all these beautiful things (architecture and women and everything between), why did he expend so much effort to catalog it in this movie. He very much has an eye for it. One telling example is the Las Vegas roadtrip scenes. Terrance Malick may feel that Las Vegas architecture is fake, unfulfilling, and whatever but he goes about that sentiment in a very confusing way. He makes it look flat out gorgeous and then has Christian Bale walk around it totally unimpressed. This happens several times in the same way until the movie ends without the characters or the world changing in any significant way. 

The fact that Christian Bale is rich and respected, sleeps with many beautiful women, and hangs out at all these great parties will probably inspire envy in the normal viewer not the knowing spiritual yearning of a world weary philospher that perhaps Malick is trying to get at. This is nobody’s fault but Malick’s. It is fair to say the movie is “out of touch.”

I like his earlier work better. It is amazing how many great artists this can apply to. It is cliché but that does not mean it should not be examined. Perhaps it should be examined because it is so cliché, i.e. so common. After all, some artists (say Martin Scorsese or Tom Waits) never stop being great no matter how old they are. So what is Terrance Malick’s problem?

I suspect it follows from being known as a genius and then subsequently surrounding oneself by ‘yes men.’ It helps to have that asshole producer that will direct one to take the audience’s expectations and comprehension abilities into consideration when making your art. When one is making one’s name in the world, one cannot but help having this influence. No studio in their right mind would give a young unproven director money without an experienced producer looking over the shoulder. But sometimes a director gains a reputation for being great and there comes this notion that they can do no wrong and at some point all of their bad tendencies and indulgences flow through. Who was there to tell Quentin Tarantino that he could have an hour and a half of just talking before any action occurred in “The Hateful Eight.” Why doesn’t anybody explain to Michael Bay that action movies should not have running times of over two and a half hours? What the fuck is David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive”? What is it???!?

“Knight of Cups” contains every beautiful technique that makes a Terrance Malick movie the unique special thing that a Terrance Malick movie is except the movie part. It’s an important part that movie part. I hope he remembers it next time.