The Bling Ring

Spring Breakers is my favorite film of 2013 to this point. It is a film that still gets at me when I least expect it. I think about it often and I find myself wanting to talk about it more and wanting to watch it again and again and again. I am not saying that The Bling Ring is having the same effect on me, but there is something similar there. Thematically sure, they are films about bored teenagers obsessed with being someone they are not, so they go to extremes to distance themselves from their boredom through illegal means. Both casts are loaded with attractive people and the characters all do love their drugs. There is a message in both films about modern youth culture, with Spring Breakers certainly pushing it much further and much darker. The Bling Ring might be scarier though, because, well it actually happened. There really was a group of bored, young, well off white kids who broke into the houses of celebrities and stole 3 million dollars worth of stuff. Now, how much of the movie is fact is up for debate. The one actual criminal from the Bling Ring who is talking about it says it is mostly fiction. However, there are details the movie gets straight from what happened. How you ask? Well, social media. Yes, these kids were posting pictures of themselves in the designer clothing the stole, flaunting the cash they stole and posting about how they were big time. Also, because they are teenagers, they could not keep their mouths shut about what was going on. At least, that is how it seems.

Marc (Isreal Brussard) is the new kid at a high school for kids who have been kicked out of other high schools. His crime was never attending class. He quickly forms a friendship with the super bored, and very trendy Rebecca (Katie Chang). Chang is hosting a party at her house and she and Marc leave the house and start trying to see if any people left their cars unlocked with cash in them. This is how it starts. Soon, Marc and Rebecca are entering the house of a friend of Marc's who is on vacation. Rebecca steals a purse and a car. Once they get away with it, the stakes get raised and Marc and Rebecca find out where Paris Hilton lives through Google and through celebrity gossip sites they discover when she will be out of town and before you know, they are in her house robbing her of small things, and hanging out in her house. Before long they are bringing friends along. Nicki (Emma Watson) and Sam (Taissa Farmiga)are best friends and basically sisters. Emma's mother (Leslie Mann) is a religious nut who home schools the kids and preaches around the basic principles of the book the Secret. Nicki and Sam are too busy trying to be models and too busy reading up on celebrity gossip to notice and they are easily roped into being a part of the Bling Ring. Chloe (Claire Julien) is a disaffected youth who is seriously too cool for everything until she becomes part of the ring of teenage thieves. Together these girls burgle Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr's place, Rachel Bilson's home, Audrina Patridge, and they enter Paris Hilton's home countless times to drink, do drugs, grind on her stripper pole and rob her of thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. Once they hit Aurdina's house things start to go a bit sour because Audrina releases security footage, but since no can see the faces, Rebecca pushes for more. She cannot stop herself and Marc, who has never had such a close friend, is powerless to stop it. Rebecca's biggest goal is to get inside Lindsay Lohan's place. She worships Lohan's style and attitude.

The Bling Ring is a fascinating and excellent portrayal of a celebrity obsessed youth. It is an incredibly in the moment film that shows the reality of desire. These kids desire something more so they just take it. It is the same message examined in Pain and Gain earlier this year. These teenagers had information at their fingertips, and a lack of moral center. They saw this stuff as being neglected by the stars, so they decided they should have it. It made them super fashionable and made it easier to get in all the great clubs and get bottle service and be noticed by all the right people. In real life the Nicki and Sam characters had a short lived E! reality show that happened during the arrest and trial. By trying to achieve fame, they achieved infamy. These teenagers became a huge story, got an article written about them and now have a movie made about them, and none of them are too happy about it. These kids cannot make money off their crime, so in the story, the names of the characters are changed. Their motives are purely superficial. For Marc, he always felt unattractive. He was constantly comparing himself to how celebrities looked and by upgrading his wardrobe by robbing these people, he started to feel as attractive as the celebrities. Rebecca was purely bored by her life. She wanted to add something to it and these robberies sufficed. She was manipulative of her friends, but when the excitement came crashing down, she thought she could outsmart it. Nicki uses her moment of fame to try and rehabilitate herself. She talks about charity and how she wants to learn from the mistakes. Her platitudes are insincere as she mugs the camera trying to always be the center of the light.

Sophia Coppola is kind of obsessed with aiming her lens at the celebrity culture. She examined it in a few ways in Lost in Translation and it was very much the focus of Somewhere, but here, she is getting flack for not digging deep enough, for making The Bling Ring much more of a face value kind of movie. I do not understand the criticism. I find that she aims her lens deeply into this bored white culture. The dialog is minimal, but when the kids speak, it is often with a shocking apathy at what is going on. Everything is chill, everything is okay, when in reality, nothing is chill and everything is certainly not okay. The non-linear structure of the film feels like false drama right at first, but as the film builds upon the interviews that are spliced with the scenes, everything unfolds in this great logical way. An early scene shows Marc trying on a shirt and being unsure of if he should button it or not and he is not pleased with how he looks. This scene, in that moment feels like a throwaway, but as the voice over interview comes on and Marc talks about feeling uncomfortable in his skin when he compares himself to famous people, the entire scope of this character comes into stark focus. We see his motives clear as day. He is not as cool as he wants to be and all of this stuff makes him cool. He takes pictures with the hot girls at the cool clubs wearing the cool clothes. This is exactly what he wanted. He is somewhat our point of view character, but he never once elicits sympathy. In fact, none of the characters do. They are all very loathsome. The actors are all good, with Emma Watson being a clear standout. She takes over the film when she gets going. Her Nicki is certainly the most interesting of the group because Watson is magnetic.

Coppola's cinematographer, Harris Savides, passed away before the film was finished, so the film is dedicated to him, but the man who picked up, Christopher Blauvelt, does an excellent job. The film looks stunning. There are two just absolutely incredible sequences that are so brilliant because of how they are shot. When Marc and Rebecca are robbing Audrina's house, the camera is stationary and at a wide angle and it just sits there. The entire scene is in one take and we hear nothing, and only see the two characters as they are running in and out of room. We see them in night vision and right before the scene ends, the camera slowly zooms in. It is an incredibly effective moment. My heart was racing through the entire scene. Another one comes not much later as Rebecca and Marc are driving late at night and the camera is behind them with almost completely obscured vision as it focuses on the road which we only see through the headlights. The entire scene the two are talking, but it is so hard to focus because we can barely see anything. I kept waiting for them to crash, or for them to swerve, but no everything goes exactly as they planned. It is a haunting wonderful moment.

The Bling Ring lets the audience make up their individual minds about what is going on here. Do you feel sorry for the famous people who had a few purses stolen when they have an entire room full of them? Is it the violation of privacy that rubs you the wrong way or perhaps just how reckless these teenagers are with the possessions of other people? Who is to say. Everyone is probably going to get something completely different out of it. I was shocked at how easy all of this was for them. There was essentially not a single moral issue raised. None of the characters really stop to question if this is something they should be doing. It was just what they did. Rebecca wanted Chanel and Rachel Bilson had it, so they went and took it. It was just that simple. None of the parents had any clue. In fact, Nicki's mom was about the only parent in the lives of any of these kids and she was so out of touch with reality that she never noticed what was happening. Is this an indictment on the parenting of these bored white teenagers? To a certain extent, yes it probably is. Now bored white teenage movies are not new. Havoc is a truly terrifying look at rich bored white teenagers, but this is a real story. The Bling Ring was this big story that swept popular culture for months. Without any hesitation these kids entered the homes of other people and just took from them. Does the fact that many of the houses were unlocked say something about the entitlement of the famous? Does it make a statement about how they feel above everyone else? Who knows. The Bling Ring is not out to make easy assumptions or give us easy answers. What fun would that be?

Final Grade: A-

This is the End

I have been waiting for this movie for quite some time. Ever since I first watched the short film Jay and Seth VS. the Apocalypse I thought it would be awesome if they did a feature length version. Eventually I got my wish. The trailers were hilarious and if nothing else, I trust these guys to make very funny movies when they have control over it. Plus, if you know anything about me, you know I am a sucker for all things META and what could be more META than a bunch of celebrities playing versions of themselves in a film where most of them are going to die? Nothing could be more META.

Jay Baruchel hates Los Angeles, so he still lives up in Canada and only coms to LA every so often to see his old friend Seth Rogen. Baruchel does not care much for Rogen's new friends- James Franco, Jonah Hill etc- but he agrees to go to a party anyway. Rogen promises to not lave his side at the party, but things are not going well as Baruchel is kind of a hipster dick to all of the celebrities and Rogen is a bit too enamored with the celebrity life. The party is at James Franco's new digs and the house is awesome. Franco is kind of an artsy tool, but he has all kinds of famous friends. Michael Cera is a coked out asshole, Kevin Hart just laughs at everything, Rhianna does not appreciate being slapped on the ass and Jason Segal does not care much for the sitcom tropes of his television show. Then you have Jonah Hill who everyone says is the sweetest guy and who is trying so hard to get Baruchel to like him, but Baruchel is not having it. Craig Robinson leads them all in a sing along of a song called "Take your Panties off" and then is when Baruchel has had enough. He and Rogen leave to get cigarettes and Baruchel tells Rogen he thinks he is just going to head back to Rogen's place and chill. Before they can really fight about it an Earthquake happens and Baruchel sees a bunch of people get sucked up into the sky through blue beams of light. Panic ensues, but when they get back Franco's place the celebrities have not been disturbed. Then suddenly, the house starts to shake and they all run outside, but most are quickly gobbled up by a giant sinkhole. Franco, Rogen, Baruchel, and Craig Robinson make it back to the house, and are now trapped with minimal provisions. The next morning they wake up to find more of their provisions have been cooked and eaten by Danny McBride who had passed out early the night before and had no idea what was going on. No one knows exactly what is happening, but Baruchel believes it is the end of days and that the blue lights beamed all of the good people up to heaven and that everyone left was not worthy. Baruchel and Robinson come up with a plan to try and do good works so they can eventually be beamed up to heaven.

If you are looking for a real plot in this movie, do not bother. Most of the movie is just a bunch of hilarious dudes sitting around having crazy stuff happen and reacting to it in a pretty funny way. Once the cabin fever sets in, things get funny. I am typically not a fan of Danny Mcbride, but he kind of steals this movie. There are wonderful cameos and I got a certain joy watching Cera, Hill and McLovin all together again in a shot scene. Cera comes off looking the worst, which is funny because everyone always talks about how sweet he is, but here he is a total nightmare of a guy and it will be tough to get the image of him without pants in the bathroom with two girls on their knees servicing him. Channing Tatum's part in this is also going to be difficult to erase from my memory. Emma Watson has probably the best part in the film and she is truly magnetic. It was weird hearing her with full harsh accent, but she gets some killer stuff in the film. The core, though, really shines. I enjoyed the insider look at the conflicts of the celebrities because I feel like some of it is probably real. Rogen and Baruchel probably actually have a weird relationship since Rogen has been embraced by Hollywood and Baruchel, while very talented, is a bit of an outsider in this world. I wonder how much truth there was in their confrontations. Jonah Hill just cracks me up. He is one of those guys who just knows how to read a line perfectly, or make a face to crack me up. He might be my favorite of this group of guys and here he does not disappoint. He has all kinds of great things to do and the Exorcism of Jonah Hill is probably the second strongest sequence behind Pineapple Express two.
Pineapple Express 2 is something that comes up a few times in the movie. Early in the part Franco and Rogen talk about making a sequel, and once the guys are trapped in the house, they do a low budget sequel and it is the high point of the film. It is hilarious, kind of inspired and weirdly effective. If anything, I was kind of hoping for more insider talk from the film and the second MIA's "Paper Planes" came on, I knew I was in for a treat for this sequence.

That is not to say everything in the film works. I am not such a fan of vomit humor, or bathroom humor, so there are a few moments that grossed me out instead of making me laugh. The third act drags on for a few minutes too long, and loses some of the humorous punch, but it does not stop the movie from being quite hilarious. There is a cameo during the credits that is completely random, totally hilarious and in a way mind boggling. If you have seen Superbad, or Knocked up, or any of those types of movies, you have an idea of what is going on here. There are many scenes where it is just people talking and these actors are so familiar with each other and have such great timing, it never stops being funny. I know I missed a ton of stuff due to my laugh, so I will definitely need to check this out again. There is also something silly about James Franco keeping props from all of his movies in his basement. Franco actually looks like he might be having more fun than anyone throughout the entire film. He has such a bizarre public image, and he certainly plays up that kind of pretentious image with all the art in the house, but you can also tell he does not take himself as seriously as people think he does and he is clearly down for whenever his friends need him and he knows how to poke fun at his own image. I think Franco is having an incredible year at the movies, and this is just another great thing from him.

This is the End has better CGI than I would have expected, constant hilarity, and even makes some interesting points about celebrity culture and the fascination we have with it. It gets a bunch of funny people and sticks them in a house with each and turns the camera on. What could possibly be bad about that? No, not every joke hits the mark, but the ones that do, hit them out of the ballpark. There is also some interesting dialog about religion and God and good works. At least I found it interesting. This is certainly one of the funnier movies of the last few years, in my opinion and I would definitely be interested in more movies from these guys playing themselves.

Man of Steel

The prospect of rebooting Superman again after the disaster that was Superman Returns, was pretty much an exercise in futility from jump street. What was the point? Did we really need yet another origin story, as if not everyone over the age of 6 does not know how Superman came to be? Well, apparently someone thought we did. In terms of getting a team together to create a new Superman, they could not have had a better brain trust. David Goyer and Jonathon Nolan scripting with story input from Chris Nolan who also oversaw the project as a producer pretty much gave new Batman credibility to the project. Zack Snyder, one of the more controversial directors working, loves comic book adaptations and has done two of them. In my opinion they were both successful in their own ways. Watchmen remains the high point of graphic novels and Snyder did about as good a job as anyone could have in adapting that material and his 300 is much better than the graphic novel. The fact remained though, what was the point? Superheroes today are not so wholesome. The more ineresting ones are damaged, complex creations with elements of serious darkness. The new Batman movies were grounded in darkness. Tony Stark is constantly battling his own demons. Those are the two biggest movie superheroes of the current age. Warner Brothers had created a dark comic book pastiche with the Batman series, but Superman is not dark. He ALWAYS fights for what is right. He is the epitome of a good guy. His moral center is unquestionable. Hell, even though he is an alien he feels so completely American, to the red and blue outfit. He represents this 1950's ideal wholesome image. Drink you milk and all of that. That is what is so wonderful about him. he maintains his moral center regardless of the craziness surrounding him. More than anyone else, Superman could destroy us in no time, if he wanted, but he is our protector. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a Superman fanatic. I did not read much in the way of DC comics growing up.)

In our world exists a wanderer. He forges his credentials and tries to keep a low profile, but he cannot help but save people. His story becomes the stuff of urban legends. He has super strength and appears completely indestructible. This man, a great looking, incredibly well built, soft spoken stranger has eluded the press his entire life until he saves a reporter by the name of Lois Lane (Amy Adams). Lane goes on the hunt until she finds out what she can about this man. Eventually they have a meeting and this wanderer opens up and trusts someone for the first time since his parents. This man, Clark Kent (Henry Cavill), is not from our world. He is from another far off world called Krypton. His parents sent him here after they realized their world was going to be destroyed and their race on the verge of being wiped out. His Kryptonian father, Jor El (Russell Crowe) imprints Clark's being with the the entire unborn population of Krypton with the hope that eventually Clark will restart the Kryptonian race on Earth. However, there is a hiccup. General Zod (Michael Shannon) was created for one reason, to keep Krypton going, to keep it safe and after a military coup does not work out, Zod and his people are sent to the phantom zone only to escape and come looking on earth for the Kryptonian boy thirty years later. Clark, who has trust issues due to his Earthly father, Jonathon (Kevin Costner) constantly telling him to hide his powers because humanity would not treat him well, is not sure what to do when Zod threatens to destroy Earth completely. Can Clark, trust humanity with his abilities or will they try and hunt him down and destroy him because of what he might become at some point. Humanity's xenophobic fears of the unknown often drive us to do stupid hurtful things and Clark has been trained to be fearful of his own safety.

From its dazzling, whirlwind, loud prologue all the way through its insane destruction of EVERYTHING, Man of Steel is certainly not your Grandfather's Superman. From the start I was hyper aware that this was not going to be the kind of Superman I was used to. I have never seen such a focus on Krypton before. And what a cool world they build with Krypton. It was industrial like whoa, and that turned out to be their downfall. We see that Jor El and Zod were friends at one time, and both are doing what they think is right to preserve the race. Jor El, a scientist, prefers starting over, and Zod, prefers taking control and trying to salvage what they have. Their confrontation in the prologue sets up a much more violent world for Superman. It also gives a much more well rounded idea of past from Clark, or Kal El as he was going to be known on Krypton. Kal El was the first natural birth in centuries. He was the first Kryptonian born with the choice to be whatever he wanted. Of course, he grows up not knowing this because he was a newborn when he was sent to Earth and found by Jonathon and Martha Kent who raise him like their own son. Told through a series of flashbacks we see Clark's upbringing throughout the film. These flashbacks are going to be unsettling for hardcore Superman fans because Jonathon's personality is different. Here Jonathon is afraid and wants Clark to hide his powers. He even told Clark he should have let a young boy die to protect himself. It is hard to fault Superman later, when he does some unSuperman type things because Jonathon raised him to be a bit afraid of the world, not to embrace it. Here we have the Superman for our times. The kind of Superman whose moral center becomes just a smidge muddled. Jonathon's fears have not stopped Clark from doing good works throughout his travels as he attempts to find out about his home world, but they raise an interesting point about the fear mongering times we live in now. Snyder and Nolan are clearly out to make Superman relevant, something I was unsure of before I went in. They succeeded in taking the classic Superhero and making him fit our times, but is that a good thing?

Superman is popular because of the ideal he represents. He goes out of his way to protect everyone, so when the third act comes all of the destruction comes with it, it is tough to take. Superman and Zod's army first wreck havoc all over Smallville Kansas with Clark not once thinking of all of the people in the way. he fights with reckless abandon and there was not a moment during the entire third act where I felt comfortable watching Superman be a part of the possible death of so many people as he threw bad guys into building filled with people. The Superman I am used to always does what he can to protect all people, including taking his fights away from people. Smallville essentially gets leveled during a brutal precursor to the finale. That being said, the action in the film is fantastic. I did find myself missing Snyder's signature speed-ramping, but I thought the action was pretty clean for a mostly CGIed fight. This massive scale attack was a response to The Avengers climax, clearly. If General Zod really poses that much of a threat, the destruction must be bigger and badder. Who knows how many years it would take for Smallville to get back together. However, that is nothing compared to what happens to Metropolis in the climax. Zod is trying to change the atmosphere of Earth and he starts with Metropolis. I cannot explain the "science" behind it because I do not understand, but it was like Zod was sending shock waves through metropolis causing it to collapse on itself. Clark is on the other side of the planet trying to stop the machine while the military is trying to stop Zod, but all that happens is the complete depressing destruction of this New York like city and probably the death of thousands of people. Once that machine gets stopped there is still the matter of ending Zod's terrorizing causing even more insane building collapses. All the while Clark and Zod are flying through these building beating the living crap out of each other without Clark ever thinking to try and take the action away from the highly populated area.

What does this really leave us with, though, as a movie? The performances are strong, especially Clark's two fathers. Michael Shannon always makes a menacing figure on screen and Cavill certainly looks phenomenal in the Superman costume. Amy Adams does strong work as Lois Lane, even if I felt she was used in a weird way. The introduction to the Clark/Lois dynamic we are used to has been thrown completely out the window and I am curious to see that build as the series surely continues. I found the story to be rich and layered, if incredibly divisive, but the dialog was clunky, as is often the case in a Snyder film. I found Snyder's direction to be spot on as the pacing of the film was well done and he caught some wonderful shots. The score is properly epic, and the CGI images were all wonderful and the desolation of the two cities was rightfully haunting, especially the smashed up Metropolis layered in smoke, dust as they are colored in gun metal greys like a post-apocalyptic film. By all rights, this is a very good movie. It is well crafted and entertaining. It is the movie we would get if Superman did come crash landing on Earth in a Regan era America. It has fear and a morally compromised Superman. He is not an anti-hero by any stretch of the imagination, but there is a sense that even Superman has to occasionally break his code in order to save the world. It is inherently pessimistic and that is weird for a Superman movie. When I leave a Superman film, I think I am supposed to want to fly off and save the world. When I left this Superman movie, I wondered if I could get out of Davis before it was rightfully crushed. I am still battling with my own feelings on Man of Steel, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder found a way to make Man of Steel a darker Superman movie without making Superman an anti-hero. They found a way to make this movie fit the world they started with The Dark Knight trilogy and are hoping to continue with the Justice League characters stuff. They are making very serious superhero movies which is not a bad thing, it is just a different thing. it is one of those things that takes time to adjust to. However, it makes sense. If they were creating a Superman for today's generation, a generation that is terrified of the unknown and a generation that feels inherently pessimistic, this is the Superman we would get.

When I was teaching last spring and we started talking about Beowulf and superheroes, we spent a great deal of time charting superheroes through the ages and how they change as our world changes. We talked about when certain heroes were introduced to fiction and how they evolve, especially Batman. I wrote a whole essay in college charting the Batman villains through the ages and how they changed as America changed. This change feels incredibly present in Man of Steel. It presents a military as cautious of what we do not know because that is the world we live in. We are automatically afraid of something unknown. Of course we would be afraid of a dude flying around shooting heat out of his eyes, even more so because he looks like we do. Man of Steel presents this idea in a very real way, and it shows us that the unknown can be trusted, to a point. We are still afraid of anything that is more powerful than we are, even if they are on our side right now because we have no idea what will happen in the future. He could turn on us. In helping us he destroyed two cities, imagine if he was not helping us!? In a post 9/11 world this is going to always be a fear. I was in a whole class of students who said horror movies did not scare them because they grew up in a world where 9/11 happened and they saw REAL horror. This is a generalization, but they are afraid and they want heroes who are a little unorthodox and this Superman provides as much of that as Superman can.

Last thought, how weird is the image of seeing Superman in handcuffs? I was not expecting it to be so jarring, but it was.

Final Grade: B