Life of Pi

Life of Pi is the kind of movie that almost dares you to love it or hate based on the ending. When it is over, you are left wondering if a great, powerful movie can be entirely altered by the final 15 minutes. It makes you question what is important in a film: is it the journey or the destination? I do not have answers for you, or for myself, but I can say this, Life of Pi is exactly the type of film that makes me happy because I know, deep down, I will think about it for quite some time. In the 5 days since I have seen it, it still lingers over me, it still haunts parts of my brain, pulling at me to think about it, analyze it. It has a reverence to it, which is fitting because it is a spiritual adventure. It does not require a belief in a Deity, but the movie exists in a spiritual realm. I am new to the material, having never read the book. I know much about the long arduous process of turning it into a movie though. Once thought to be an unfilmable novel, 4 different directors and 3 different leading men were attached at various times. Well, I can only say they appeared to have got the right people for the job.

Pi(Suraj Sharma) is a young man full of life and spirit until his dad rips the innocence from him. His father, a man of science and logic, did not like that his son was a believer in multiple faiths. Pi had a great capacity for the beauty in the world. He believed in Judaism, Christianity, and is a follower of Islam. He just believed that God existed and found lessons everywhere. He believed everything had a purpose and all creatures had a soul and his father crushed that when the family got a tiger for their zoo. The tiger, Richard Parker, would soon be a bigger part of Pi's life than he could have ever imagined. When the family is forced to move, they get on a ship and in the midst of a giant storm, Pi is lost at sea with only Richard Parker as a companion.

Life of Pi is a survival story. It is Castaway with a tiger instead of a volleyball. Pi is stranded on a boat with this giant tiger, and the film takes place almost entirely on the water in that lifeboat. It is not a movie about plot, but about character, faith, and survival. The structure of events is not the point, the destination is not necessarily the point. His survival might not even be the point since we know at the very start that he survives the ordeal. He is telling the story to a story writer. Life of Pi tells the story of a remarkable young man who tell a remarkable story. And it is a remarkable story, and it is remarkably told.

Ang Lee, director of such films as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain, does amazing things with this film. I audibly gasped at the beauty of the film at least 5 times. There are gorgeous shots, amazing landscapes, the storm is mind boggingly phenomenal. Lee's steady confidence allows for all of this to happen. He trusts the beauty around him. There is a scene where the ocean is lit up by jellyfish and we see this gorgeous whale and it looks like a screensaver, it is that stunning. The reverence Pi has for God and beauty is felt throughout this entire film. Lee understands this is Pi's story and shoots it as Pi would see it. He sees the beauty, and the frailty, and the Godfulness in everything. This is not just the God we think about as being a old guy with a beard in Heaven, no this is the God who is all around in nature. The God who could allow devastation to happen, but also surround this young man with the beauty of the world. Maybe that does not make sense, hell, I am not sure it makes sense to me as I write it, but while watching the film, it made complete sense.

Ultimately though, I was left with this ending. This ending that threatened to completely erase the first 110 minutes of the movie. I will not spoil it here, but something happens that completely turns the movie around. I get the point. I understand what the story is trying to get at with the ending. I am not immune to this idea of God in our lives. Or more precisely, this idea of survival by believing in God. I was behind it and it makes a gorgeous story. It has a power behind it. I also get why there is this ending. I am just not sure how I feel about it. It forces you to question the motives of the author. However, I think what it mostly does is it makes you question you. It makes you question humanity and what we are really about. If you think I am being hyperbolic, well, I do not think I am. Life of Pi has grand ambitions. It operates from a place of "Why are we here" and when a movie sets that lofty type of journey, I do not think it is a stretch that is asking us about our own humanity. I am glad I took the journey, for I am left with these questions and when a movie leave me with questions about humanity, I think it is a good thing.

Final Grade: B+

Skyfall

I have always had a sort of "ehhh" reaction to James Bond. I enjoy the movies for what they are, but to be completely honest, every Bond movie looks like the last Bond movie. I am not a Bond fanatic. I will never argue who the best Bond is, and when Bond is a category on Jeopardy, I never do well. They all run together and they leave no real impression on me. Also, I think I am different from most people who are Bond fans because I prefer this new more intense Bond. When Pierce Brosnon drove an invisible car as Bond, I thought it was time to put the character to bed, and they did, sort of. Bond got reimagined, taken back to the beginning with Daniel Craig as a more serious, more weathered looking Bond. That caught my attention. Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace were more Jason Bourne than James Bond and I preferred that. However, I cannot recall a single thing in Quantum of Solace in this moment. Skyfall has pedigree though. Sam Mendes in the director's chair is always going to grab my attention. Reviews called it the best Bond. Others said it married the ridiculous of early Bond with the grittiness of recent Bond. My best friend, who is not easy to please in action movies, raved. I was pumped.

Bond, James Bond (Craig) is in the middle of a case when the film opens. This case eventually takes him on a rooftop chase, but not on foot, no on motorcycles! The chase eventually ends up on a train and after some seriously intense fighting and great editing, Bond is shot and presumed dead. However, Bond is never dead. Enjoying vacation by banging a super hot chick and engaging in a drinking game involving a scorpion, it looks like Bond has found peace. However, like the Godfather, he keeps getting pulled back in! When he realizes someone may be targeting his boss, M (Dame Judi Dench), Bond goes back to work. After passing a series of tests, Bond is deemed ready to go back to work and he is quickly on the trail of Silva(Javier Bardem) who has a personal vendetta against M. Silva was once an agent of MI6, like Bond, but after a case went awry, he became vengeful. Silva does not believe in weapons though, he believes in technology. He can clear an island using just a computer. He can hack anything at any time. He is always one step ahead, as villains often are. In order for Bond to get the upper hand he has to face his personal demons and face who he really is.

Skyfall has everything you want a Bond film to have. Hot girls, awkward sex scenes, great fight scenes and a sexy car. it goes over the top, but is also gritty and reality based. Craig makes the perfect Bond. I know that is a controversial opinion, but his stoicism makes Bond fallible. He actually looks like he is in trouble when things looks bad. He does not take things in stride and know he is going to win like every other Bond. Craig's Bond is human. He suffers real pain, both physical and emotional. His Bond is quick witted and great with ladies, but he also wears his damage in his eyes and I think that is key for me with a character in so much danger. I want to see the stakes in his face. I want it to register that death is possible. Bond is human, and normally he is treated as a super hero. I think that is why I respond so well to the new Bond movies, it makes Bond relatable. Craig wears the suit very well, he is believable as a womanizer, and he is belivable as a kick ass spy, but his face is tired. He wears the weariness of a spy so incredibly well.

Javier Bardem is no slouch in the villain department. Our introduction to him is the stuff of legendary villains. He is theatrical, menacing, slimy and unbelievably damaged. The crackling homoerotic nature of Bond and Silva's first meeting is jarring in any setting but in a testosterone fest like Bond it is shockingly disconcerting. Bardem and Craig play that first scene like a gay chess match, neither character budging an inch, wondering who will flinch first. It really is the scene that sticks with you when the movie is over, in my opinion. Bond is so full of manly driven desires, to see Bardem flamboyantly unbutton Bond's shirt and make homoerotic quips while Bond deadpans "who says this is my first time?" is unsettliingly comical. Bardem has made a menacing villain before and won an Oscar for it, but here he is going to over the top and he succeeds at every turn. He never loses the comic touch you always want a Bond villain to have, but like Craig's Bond, he grounds his emotions in reality. His vengeance, while not noble, is almost understandable. He is not out for world domination. He just wants payback. Who cannot relate to payback, even if his is on a grand scale?

Skyfall includes some great action set pieces as well. The roof top motorcycle chase ( it is like the screenwriter watched Bourne and thought, this is cool, but motorcycles would make it awesome) sets the stage, and leads to a great top of train fist fight, but we also get an incredibly intense gun fight in a public place that looks as at home in a heist film like Heat as it does in a Bond film. It is very in your face. My only problem with the movie is in the climax. It is a great action set piece, set in a gorgeous castle with explosions, bullets, a car being demolished and a helicopter crash, but it plays a lot like Home Alone. Without very many weapons, Bond, M and another guy set traps, create weapons from household materials and rig doors, Ala Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. Once the climax gets going, I was able to push that aside and just enjoy it, but as the set up was going on, I was giggling a little bit in thinking of Bond and Kevin McCallister teaming up.

With Mendes' steady confident hand, Roger Deakins' always solid cinematography (especially in the final 35 minutes), Thomas Newman's gorgeous score and solid performances, Skyfall is definitely the best Bond movie I have ever seen. It is memorable, action packed, has personal stakes, and finally puts Bond in a context I can grasp. Often times we see movies that fill in back story for characters we do not want (Darth Vader, Michael Myers for example), but giving Bond just a bit of back story helps raise the stakes of the film and make it all the better. It sets up the story of the Bond we have known for decades, while giving us a sliver of the humanity found deep inside.

Final Grade: A-

Oh, Adele's title song is gorgeous.

Wreck-it Ralph

Toy story worked because it played off an idea most kids have at one time: what if my toys were real? Wreck-it Ralph asks the question what if video game characters were real? It is the exact same premise as Toy Story, but instead of Pixar's usually flawless story telling, Wreck-It Ralph is coming from Disney who has been incredibly hit-or-miss lately, emphasis on miss. The trailers were cute. They played on my generation's 8-bit nostalgia. It gave us some of the characters we grew up with and promised video game jokes of all kinds. The animation looked good, the voice work looked good, but the movie was not selling a story. It was selling nostalgia. The problem with nostalgia is it has a short shelf life. A 90 minute that is nothing but "remember this character..." would be an awful movie experience. Toy Story worked because nostalgia was merely a hook for a brilliant story told incredibly effectively. Wreck-it Ralph was high on my to-see list, but I was concerned about how effective it would be.

Wreck-it Ralph (John C. Reilly) is the villain in a Donkey Kong style arcade game called Fix-it Felix. Somehow the game has remained popular enough to last in one arcade for decades, seeing flash in the pan games come and go. The problem is, Ralph is not actually a bad guy. When the game turns off for the night and the characters go back to their own world, all Ralph wants is to be liked. he wants to have friends and prove he belongs next to Felix(Jack McBrayer) as a hero. In the game, when the hero wins he gets a medal. This gives Ralph the idea that he should go into another game to get a medal. The next morning he game jumps and ends up in Hero's Duty, a first person shooter that looks like a video game version of Spaceship Troopers. Breaking all of the rules of a first person shooter, Ralph gets his medal, but things go awry and instead of being back in his own game, he ends up in Sugar Rush, a race car game. The rest of the movie takes place in Sugar Rush, a lushly colored video game littered with candy. Imagine CandyLand as a video game. Ralph meets a precocious young girl, Vaneloppe(Sarah Silverman) and they become friends. Vaneloppe is a glitch, and in her game if she is allowed to race, odds are the kids playing will complain and the game will be unplugged and the characters will end up bums in the Grand Central Station of video games. However, all she wants to do is race. This is the key story, there are a few side plots involving a bug jumping from Hero's Duty to Sugar Rush and threatening to consume the game and destroying all games.

Wreck-It Ralph succeeds on every level without question. The animation is top notch. The movie pops off the screen (in 2D) with vivacious life and fluid motions. Sugar Rush could have been too cutesy, too, well...sugary, but it works. I was worried when I heard the majority of the game was going to take place in this Sugar Rush world, but it works. It lends itself to great gags, great visuals and awesome racing. However, it really is the story that gets you. Much like Toy Story, the nostalgia is cute. It really gets you into the world, but once you are in the world, you become attached to Ralph. Ralph is like the big dope who is well intentioned but cannot help but screw everything up because of his size. John C. Reilly could not be more perfect in the role. He has a gentle sweetness to his voice, but also an over-arching melancholy that permeates his entire being. Sarah Silverman tones down her annoying to give a very warm, feisty and fun voice performance to a character that could have easily derailed the entire movie. These two have a gentle and warm chemistry and watching the friendship between the two characters is what gives this movie its beating heart.

There are great video game jokes for people who love video games, and there are great jokes and slapstick for kids and there is a sophistication for the parents of all generations. I have a hard time believing people out there not enjoying this movie. It is a good time for everyone, but it is also heartfelt and has great underlying themes. It tells us not to let other people define who we are. Ralph has a job, and it takes him being away from that job to make others appreciate who he is and what he does. He looks like the villain and is programmed to be the villain, but he has a giant heart. On the other end, Vaneloppe is told by her entire game that she is a mistake, but she knows in her heart who she is and when all of the truth comes out, it is a very touching thing to see. She uses her "glitch" to her advantage. It teaches kids, and all of us, that maybe we are who we are meant to be. We are not mistakes and maybe our "flaws" help make us the beautiful people we are supposed to be. Am I reaching? I do not think so. I think every good movie aimed at kids has a great message under it and Wreck-it Ralph has plenty. However, more than anything else, it is a great heart warming movie that had me falling in love with my youth all over again.

Final Grade: A-

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The history of film is littered with authors who try to adapt their own novels and fail. Generally speaking, authors should not direct movies based on their own stories. For years I heard rumors of a Perks of being a Wallflower adaptation and for years they were just that, rumors. However, once casting got underway the adaptation appeared inevitable. Author Stephen Chbosky had written the screenplay and was going to be directing his own adaptation and he was going to take R-Rated material and turn it into Pg-13 material. I truly believe adaptations have to be judged separately from the source material, but the PG-13 knowledge scared me. Plus, the book means so much to so many people at a very specific time in their lives, I was not sure how it would translate to film. The very epistolary nature of the novel did not seem like it could translate very well. Well, The Perks of being a Wallflower bucks all of those trends because it is fantastic.

Charlie( Logan Lerman) is a total loner entering high school. He eats lunch by himself and is as depressed as a teenager could possibly be. His favorite aunt died in a car crash, his best/only friend killed himself and Charlie himself had an unknown episode prior to the events of the film. His brother was a big time football star, his girlfriend is popular, but has a jerk for a boyfriend and Charlie's dad is not terribly understanding to his situation. he keeps to himself and spends most of his day wishing himself gone. That changes when he meets a pair of step-siblings: Patrick (Ezra Miller and Sam (Emma Watson). Patrick is a brash flamboyant class clown and Sam is a gorgeous, but damaged girl who immediately catches the eye of Charlie. Patrick and Sam help Charlie to come out of his shell. They give him friends, a purpose and help him laugh and be happy. The story unfolds as we get a, intimate look into the lives of misfit teenagers trying to find their place in the world, and the story is being told to a "friend" in a series of letters from Charlie. Charlie is trying to figure out why he is so sad. Why he has these flashes of memories and why he does, at times, nearly black out with rage or sadness.

The Perks of being of Wallflower left me a blubbering mess. For days I thought about how perfectly crafted it was, how wonderful the acting was and how easily Chbosky managed to adapt his story, but mostly I thought about all of the emotions I felt watching it. Patrick and Sam appear to have everything together, but their lives are just as messy and sad as Charlie's and the performances from Miller and Watson are simply stunning. Watson is a revelation in a stripped down very vulnerable performance of a character that could easily move into the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. Lerman's Charlie, though, is the reason this movie works so well. he makes Charlie a character we are endlessly rooting for. He is sweet, likable, wounded, funny, heart breaking and most of all, honest. This movie only works if the honesty of the characters shine through and it is a credit to Chbosky that he pulled amazingly honest performances from his trio of leads.

Charting one full school year, the film shows up every possible up and down you could imagine. We have love, heart break, holidays, warmth, distance, deep sadness, acceptance and mostly friendship. yes, this is a story about one young man realizing why he is damaged, realizing that the entirety of his memory betrayed him and that the reality of his life is so dark and sad that he has to black out just to forget it, but deep down it is about this great friendship. Patrick and Sam rely on each other, but they come to rely on Charlie as well. They love Charlie and Charlie loves them. What gets them through all of it is the friendship they share.

This film does not rely on you having read the source material. It may cause you to devour the source material afterwards, because it is an easy read, much like this is easy viewing. Chbosky does not have many directorial tricks up his sleeve. He allows the words, the characters and the emotions to speak for themselves. He had a great editor who could cut the flashback sequences in the perfect place, but he does not need any camera tricks because this is an intimate look at a slice of teenage life. He gives us tight shots and lets the actors do the rest. We laugh with them, we cry with them and we hope they find whatever they are looking for. We desire to feel infinite the way they do in those perfect moments. It is all made possible because of the stunning trio of performances. Miller is a star in the making. Watson shows she is definitely worthy of having an outstanding post Harry Potter movie career and Lerman really gives us a Charlie that we can all relate to no matter what our personal high school experience. I will be surprised if this film is not in my top 10 at the end of the year.

Flight

It is kind of amazing how often trailers can be misleading. The trailers set out to make Flight look like a pretty intense thriller about a plane crash and the hero of the crash. I read reviews playing up the intense and brutal nature of the crash and I was prepared to watch an intense legal (ish) thriller featuring Denzel as a wounded hero. What you actually get with Flight is a full on character drama. The plane crash almost becomes nothing more than a plot point used to jump start the real film. This is not a complaint, or an endorsement, just letting you know that if you go see Flight expecting a thriller or a big effects driven plane crash, you are going into the wrong movie.

Captain Whip Whitaker(Denzel Washington) wakes up to his phone ringing. At first everything is just slightly out of focus. As things come into focus, what appears is a hotel room full of empty alcohol bottles, a super sexy naked woman(Nadine Velazquez) and clothes strewn everywhere. Whitaker is loudly and crassly arguing with what appears to be his ex wife over money for his son. To calm himself he takes a swig of beer, presumably luke warm beer from a half finished can. After he hangs up the phone, he snorts a line of cocaine and he and the sexy flight attendant go on their way. Hungover and high on cocaine, Whitaker proceeds to get behind the wheel of a commercial airplane and fly through rough turbulence. Once they get to clear skies, Whitaker sneaks 3 mini bottle of vodka into some Orange juice, and drinks some more. Without warning the plane starts to go down. In a freefall nose dive, Whitaker finds a way to miraculously land the plane with only 6 passengers dead. Whitaker himself suffers pretty minor injuries for a crash like that. Because people demand answers from plane crashes, we get a story of one man's severe alcoholism, with the plane crash serving as our out entrance into this man's life. If Whitaker could just manage to stay sober he can probably stay out of jail and retain his pilot's licence.

Flight asks some very tough questions. Whitaker is a hero. he saved nearly 100 lives and very early on we know that his drinking/drug using had nothing to do with the plane crashing. He is a true hero, but is he? His ex-wife hates him, his teenage son hates him. He pushes away his only friend (Bruce Greenwood) and eventually he pushes away his love interest (played tenderly, but toughly by Kelly Reilly). Do we root for this man to get away completely free? Do we want this hero to go to jail for flying under the influence and breaking his ethics code and the law even though he saved the lives of 100 people? There are no easy answers and Flight is not interested in easy answers. Flight is simply presenting its audience with this series of questions. Whitaker is a man on the brink of losing everything in his life and all he has to do to make it out is not drink. It was that simple. Stay sober and keep your life. Alcohol has a strangle hold on him though. Flight quickly turns into the story of addiction and how it does not care if you are a good person, a bad person, or anything in between. it simply just latches onto someone and hangs on for as long as it can.

Denzel is simply amazing as Whitaker. He is arrogant and damaged. He is both hero and villain, at the same time. he takes Whitaker to very dark places, getting rid of vanity, hope, and charm. he lives inside this alcoholic to the point where I completely lost Denzel. Playing drunk on screen is not easy. People ham it up all of the time, but Denzel plays drunk with more conviction, more sadness and more embarrassment than I can remember seeing from anyone. As the movie goes on we start to see ourselves conflicted with Whitaker because we do not understand his addiction. We see a man who saved lives fall further and further away and be replaced by a man who passes out on the floor next to his television because he cannot get himself up from his drunken stupor.

Robert Zemeckis, the director of this film is also in top form. After years of only directing motion capture movies, Zemeckis' return to live action is triumphant. Many directors would have gone for the big money shot of the plane landing. Not Zemeckis. We only see the plane crash after the fact on a handheld camera phone. It was in that moment that I knew I was in for a treat. Zemeckis has made us so far removed from the plane landing that it allows the movie to move focus on Whitaker's addiction. His pacing is excellent and the way he lingers the camera just long enough on a bottle of alcohol is stirring in the right moments. When you add John Goodman's brilliant three scenes, Don Cheadle's always solid acting work and some of the best music picked for a movie, you are in for a treat.

Flight is gripping, but not in the way I expected. It is not a traditional character study, but it is not a plot driven movie either. It falls somewhere between those two things. It asks us where we are morally, instead of telling us where we are morally. It features one of Denzel's best performances and one of Denzel's best moments in a movie. His final courtroom scene is breathtaking. Every thing he says and does not say means something. Every pause for water is wrenching. He is on the edge of a cliff and we spend 2 hours wondering if he will jump and when the times to find out what he is going to do, oh man he knocks it out of the park. If there are 5 performances better than that this year, then this might be the best year for male performances ever. That is how good he is.