Bridesmaids (2011)

directed by Paul Feig

starring Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne

I was really excited to see this movie. It was written by Kristen Wiig, getting glowing reviews, and had started a discussion about women in comedy. In fact, I read quite a bit of feminist analysis of Bridesmaids before seeing it - including one or two articles that weren't quite so ecstatic. I was anxious to weigh in on the debate, and see what was happening for myself.

But honestly, I don't feel like talking about feminism after watching this. I wasn't thinking 'What a Great Movie About Women' while watching Bridesmaids. I was thinking: What a Great Movie. Period. It hardly crossed my mind that this movie was somehow different or special because the main characters were all female. It was just...funny. They were just people.

But I know women aren't 'just people' in Hollywood yet - they're a vast minority among protagonists and, even as supporting characters, often only serve as accessories in the men's lives. The Bechdel Test shows that much. (Caution: TV Tropes ahead.) But for once, I'd like to talk about a movie outside of the context of gender - because that's how Bridesmaids presented itself. And that is a great accomplishment.

Okay, we're going to try out bullets again:

• I already mentioned how funny and well-written this movie was. Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo (writers) did an excellent job of developing the relationships between the main characters. All of them were clearly thought out - I found myself wanting more time with Rita and Becca, two supporting bridesmaids who didn't get the same screen time but who remained developed and hilarious. Rhodes was adorable and slightly awkward as the love interest, and they nailed the chemistry.
• Annie was thoroughly messed up and had a messed up life to match; her decisions didn't make any more sense than the way her world crumbled around her. I loved that she did stupid things, confused by her past experiences and trained not to trust anything that appeared genuine. It was interesting and honest in a movie also populated by diarrhea jokes.
• The story of new friend/old friend drama might be labeled stereotypically feminine, but it also ached of reality. I'm probably appreciating theme way more than I should in this movie, but its exploration of change and growth in adult life - both toward unfamiliar privelege and unexpected brokenness - won't hurt its appeal.

This movie probably isn't in the running for Instant Classic, but it's an excellent entry of R-rated Apatow-brand comedy. The fact that I saw this movie in a packed theater on a Thursday night is a testament to that.

I can't end before mentioning: The Break-Every-Driving-Law-Possible scene is my personal submission for Crowning Moment of Funny. Still laughing.

Coming Soon: Hamlet, Notorious, Vertigo, Pulp Fiction

Never Let Me Go (2010)

directed by Mark Romanek
starring Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley

This movie ripped out my heart. Really, I don't think there's a more eloquent way to put it. I have no excuse for the slobbering mess I am right now. I knew what this movie was about going in. Love triangle between three clones destined to give their organs and their lives - this movie was practically manufactured from tears.

I decided to sympathize with Keira Knightley's character the moment she started acting questionably - I guess I like to side with the character set against the main protagonist. (Not the antagonist, necessarily, but the one who's just sitting to the side poking them with a stick.) It's like I feel like there must be narrator bias involved, or something. I don't know. It was difficult, admittedly, to enjoy her perspective, but Keira Knightley did an outstanding job. It was fun to see her in the role of the atoner - flipped around, a bit, from another one of her prominent roles.

But this story belonged to Kathy (Carey Mulligan). Her loneliness was overwhelming - even in the brief happy segments, she seemed almost out of place in another's embrace. It's this feature that draws me to her - not that she was wronged, or that she was thoroughly good throughout it all - but that she bore a tragic destiny while looking out of windows and into books, uncomforted by thoughts of requition. (Apparently that's not a word. I'm using it anyway.)

Then again, it is this same fear that haunts Ruth, and it is what motivates her desperate grasps at love. While Kathy bore her fate quietly for the majority of the movie, Ruth embraced it in her final surrender. In some ways I'm still more fascinated by her.

But if I'm fascinated by Ruth, I'm still stuck firmly in Kathy's shoes.

I realize I haven't quite mentioned Tommy yet. Poor Tommy. He was beautifully played by Andrew Garfield, a lovely mess of confusion and longing and frustration. The moment when he explores the beached ship with childlike enthusiasm, only to be distracted by a nagging pain in his side, is the perfect illustration of their short lives. In some ways he is an accessory to the two girls, controlled largely by their actions; yet he has his own share of perspective and emotion.

This story has less to say about the ethics of cloning and more on the nature of humanity. (The ethics of raising fully human children and then harvesting their organs is never really up for serious discussion, in my experience.) You are so caught up in the complications of love and jealousy amidst childhood and youth that you forget about the rest. As Kathy points at out the end, we are all completed someday. We are all living under death sentences, spending limited time with those around us. Their situation merely magnifies ours.

The tragedy of the title is the last thing that lingers on me. Since childhood, they are taught to let each other go; it is this art that Kathy has mastered by the film's end. But are we all not, to an extent? Our shared fate is both to let go and be let go. The echoed love songs may tell us otherwise, but life, like Hailsham, takes no exceptions.

Giant (1956)

directed by George Stevens

starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean

I watched Giant over the course of two nights with my grandparents, whose love for this movie was no doubt mingled with memories of the Texas their parents knew - a Texas torn between the old and the modern. But as much as this film captures a specific time, it also displays themes that are timeless: outsider vs. the establishment, old money vs. new money, parent vs. child, sexism, racism, growth and loss.

In some ways the film is outspokenly progressive - the main protagonist gets into a fistfight over the honor of a family of Hispanic strangers at the climax, something that must have been a little less than expected a decade before the Civil Rights movement truly got rolling. Elizabeth Taylor's headstrong wife gets quite a few words in edgewise about the unfair perspective these traditional cattle ranchers have towards women. (These words are, of course, ineffective, laughed at, apologized for, and forgotten in the bedroom, but I digress.) 

More than anything, though, this is a movie about people, and the slow road life takes them on from Virginia to West Texas and from ranching to oil. This is the film's strength: excellent characters portrayed by excellent actors, living their lives within breathtaking cinematography, courtesy of the Texan (well, mostly Arizonan and Californian) landscape.

I didn't even mind the 3:20 running time, even if it is north of an hour longer than today's standards. Movies that tell sweeping stories probably aren't meant for one sitting, anyway. Novels are read over days.

My one complaint? More James Dean. The posters are distressingly misleading.

Coming Soon: Hamlet, Never Let Me Go, Notorious, Vertigo

Megamind (2010)

Oh yes, we're starting this in most epic fashion.

directed Tom McGrath

starring Will Farrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, Brad Pitt

I just saw Megamind for the first time. Unlike Despicable Me, which was brought to me by my elementary age cousins, this animated supervillian-centric tale was suggested by three of my college age friends. Who I almost never see in person. Naturally, we'd spend our time watching children's movies. You wish you were this cool.

There's a reason this film made top priority for us - it's really good. I liked it a great deal more than Despicable Me, or many other movies marketed at the sub-13 sector of society.

Spoilers ahead.

In the spirit of brevity, I'm going to make a list of why I was pleasantly surprised by this movie:

1) Originality In a genre where almost every spoof has already been spoofed itself, this movie twisted in unpredictable ways from the beginning and didn't stop. The main antagonist, featured heavily in the advertising and voiced by Brad Pitt, was dead at the end of the film's opening battle. (Well, dead enough for our purposes.) The movie then moved to a contemplation of a villain's life post-world takeover. What happens next? He falls for the girl and starts inching toward the good side, training up a new hero - it seems like we're veering for a showdown where he'll realize that he doesn't really want to fight anymore. Unless the new hero decides to go evil himself - then, suddenly, this battle is Megamind's heroic moment itself, not the lead-up to one. Predictably, the first hero turns up not-so-dead - but surprisingly, his refusal to assist the protagonist holds firm, even when it seems otherwise. Each new development doesn't just play out - it arrives ahead of schedule and changes the game. I never set back and put my viewing-mode on autopilot. This is how light, entertaining movies should be made. 

2) Tina Fey and her awesome character. Initially lost between the two boys in the marketing, it became clear that this stereotypical romantic character was going to be much more involved than your average Team Chick. In addition to delivering the sarcastic comebacks featured in the trailer, this reporter was involved, self-assured, informed, and displayed plenty of agency. She felt like an actual character, not the Required Strong(ish) But Mostly Pretty Female Role Model required in PG-rated movies.

3) Oops That about sums it up. I'll have to work on avoiding this brevity thing in the future.

This is not the standard movie I'll be reviewing, but it provided a nice warm-up. In the meantime, bear with me as I figure out the format of these reviews.

Preview of upcoming attractions: Never Let Me Go, Giant, Vertigo, Notorious

let's get started

One week from Monday, I'll be starting this.

Here's how it goes:

Watch one movie per week day (M-T-W-Th-F)
Write a review of each movie and post each day (5/week)
I can use the weekends to catch up, because life happens
BUT all five posts will be accounted for by Sunday at 12:00 midnight
...I give you permission to be mad at me if this does not happen.

Not every movie I review will be one I haven't seen before,
but most of them will be.
And obviously, I won't review the same movie twice.

This is me building a foundation for a future in filmmaking.
Let's go.