Writen, directed, starring, focusing on and showcasing Clint Eastwood.
Gran Torino (it's his CAR!) is a movie that doesn't fall in the area of movies i typically see. It's not great and it's not horrible. It is very painfully average - the fact that this warrants a 75% freshness rating on rottentomatoes.com (as of this writing) is cause for alarm. Are our movies really getting that bad?
Firstly, nothing will make you appreciate good acting like terrible acting. While normally i "don't care about" actors, Clint Eastwood is the only one in the movie who does anything that can be mistaken for acting. Even then, his role was largely one of "reticent anger" similar to, oh, i don't know, everything else he's ever done.
The characters start off (yes, all of them) relatively unlikeable in a wide array of ways. In the intro, Clint Eastwood's wife has just died and his family's in mourning. Due to the funeral, Eastwood is forced to spend time with his whiny, self-centred and arrogant grandchildren and unsympathetic and estranged children. But, considering Clint himself is portrayed as an evil, racist, hate-filled cunt, you kinda feel like it's par for the course.
The first half of the movie is punishingly sluggish as it "builds the setting". You're introduced to Eastwood's "gook neighbours" as he'd call them (not me) and shown that they, too, are largely unlikable for a variety of reasons. As this later turns out not to be an important part of the story, it makes you wonder why it was brought up to begin with. However, considering every character is portrayed as negatively as possible, it's probably not "that" reason.
By this point in the movie, since you probably haven't identified with any of the hateful characters, you might think "how can this turn out good?". Well, cue the writer's favourite device: the heel-face turn. For those of you not fluent in the lingo, it's when an unlikable character turns into a likable one... often done (as is the case in Gran Torino) as clumsily as possible (for emphasis?). Systematically, each and every main character will go from outwardly hostile toward each other to heartwarming love-fest in roughly 20 minutes of real time. Yes, it's that jarring. To make matters worse, the 20 minutes of real time is roughly equivalent to a couple weeks in movie time. Given that their hostility was directed toward each other for most of the movie (and implied to be long before that) it's jarring even in context.
I'd like to continue on here and tear apart the plot, but the sad fact of the matter is... i can't. The ending is actually good (I mean, apart from all the terrible acting): It's emotional, gripping and entertaining all in one. The characters who don't get their heel-face turn are slapped instead and the movie ends on a story-writing high note. Clint Eastwood sings as the credits role.
...
Let me repeat that for those of you who missed it: Clint Eastwood... SINGS. And it's every bit as awful as you can imagine it to be - probably worse if movies have killed your imagination (yes, yes,. Normally here i'd make a joke about how Eastwood's singing will somehow get him nominated for a Golden Globe, but it seems reality has beaten me to the punch. While the movie didn't get any nominations in "prestigious" categories (and it shouldn't!) it DID receive one for "Best Original Song": the song sung by Eastwood himself.
As far as i see it, this is an average movie. A good movie to walk in on halfway through: 2 and a half stars (out of 5).
Monday, January 12, 2009
Saturday, January 3, 2009
In Bruges review
Or why (some) mainstream movie reviewers should quit their day jobs.
What can you say about a movie like In Bruges? I guess i can start by listing all the film's negatives:
It's hard to find.
...
Really, that's about it.
In Bruges is a movie that (like any good movie) is not easily type-cast. It's not a comedy with action parts, it's not an action with drama, and it's not a dramedy. It's a movie that contains elements of action, elements of comedy and elements of drama, but is itself just a very well put together story. As such, it's won high praise from almost everyone who's seen it. This movie is, in essence, what a good movie should be: a good story. And no one can fault a good story.
In fact, most criticisms i've heard for this movie come from those who live and die by the classification system of movies:
"Not enough action for an action flick."
"Not enough comedy for a comedy."
"Not enough drama for a drama."
People who hated this movie are the same types who (self proclaimed, even) are the types that think a movie about hitmen should start and end at Pulp Fiction. Now, don't get me wrong: Pulp Fiction is a good film, but these critics are the very reason hollywood churns out so much god damned trash to begin with. Unoriginality rules the day and anything the least bit original scares or confuses these people.
Why is the concept of two hitmen in bruges a bad idea? Apparently because the "two hitmen" strategy was done once by quinten tarintino in Pulp Fiction. How DARE anyone use two stock characters again, even if they are in a totally different story!
When i deride a movie, i always do so in the same manner: i take specific plot elements and explain HOW it's bad or why i see it as such. What's more, i try very hard to do so in a way that doesn't "give away" the overall plot (with the exception of truly awful movies; but that's more out of sympathy for you). Most other reviewers (sadly, not just the negative reviewers i'm talking about here) will gleefully give away entire plot points, often going as far as recapping the entire movie and NEVER explaining how certain plot elements are bad beyond just stating it. Expect wholesale criticisms of "clunky direction" and "poor tone shifting" without any specific examples*. And yes, it's possible to give specific examples without giving away the plot (i do it all the bloody time). All this adds up to make me wonder what the hell anyone even sees in "mainstream reviewing" at all.
I guess it's not fair to paint all the critics of In Bruges with the above brush: some hated the movie for entirely shallower reasons. I read one review that claimed the writing was purposely "anti-american" for the sake of being edgy (or something like that). However, the amount of "anti-americanism" (politically loaded fictional concept that it is) that exists is confined solely to how characters perceive things. Hating a movie because of a character's character (especially one that's not presented entirely sympathetically, as is the case in In Bruges) is truly bizarre. It's kind of like hating carrots because Hitler was a vegetarian. It may be a fact that the character hates americans or Hitler was a vegetarian, but that in and of itself really doesn't make the movie or carrots less good as a result. Well, maybe not entirely true for the carrots thing.
Anyway, In Bruges is an excellent movie that does the one thing movies should do: tell a story. In a world where too many movies just showcase actors and follow focus-group delivered plots, it's a refreshing breath of fresh air to finally see something that isn't one of those two things. I give it a 9.5 out of 10... because i never give perfects (ask my students).
*both these claims appear in critical reviews of In Bruges and (unsurprisingly) without examples to back them up.
What can you say about a movie like In Bruges? I guess i can start by listing all the film's negatives:
It's hard to find.
...
Really, that's about it.
In Bruges is a movie that (like any good movie) is not easily type-cast. It's not a comedy with action parts, it's not an action with drama, and it's not a dramedy. It's a movie that contains elements of action, elements of comedy and elements of drama, but is itself just a very well put together story. As such, it's won high praise from almost everyone who's seen it. This movie is, in essence, what a good movie should be: a good story. And no one can fault a good story.
In fact, most criticisms i've heard for this movie come from those who live and die by the classification system of movies:
"Not enough action for an action flick."
"Not enough comedy for a comedy."
"Not enough drama for a drama."
People who hated this movie are the same types who (self proclaimed, even) are the types that think a movie about hitmen should start and end at Pulp Fiction. Now, don't get me wrong: Pulp Fiction is a good film, but these critics are the very reason hollywood churns out so much god damned trash to begin with. Unoriginality rules the day and anything the least bit original scares or confuses these people.
Why is the concept of two hitmen in bruges a bad idea? Apparently because the "two hitmen" strategy was done once by quinten tarintino in Pulp Fiction. How DARE anyone use two stock characters again, even if they are in a totally different story!
When i deride a movie, i always do so in the same manner: i take specific plot elements and explain HOW it's bad or why i see it as such. What's more, i try very hard to do so in a way that doesn't "give away" the overall plot (with the exception of truly awful movies; but that's more out of sympathy for you). Most other reviewers (sadly, not just the negative reviewers i'm talking about here) will gleefully give away entire plot points, often going as far as recapping the entire movie and NEVER explaining how certain plot elements are bad beyond just stating it. Expect wholesale criticisms of "clunky direction" and "poor tone shifting" without any specific examples*. And yes, it's possible to give specific examples without giving away the plot (i do it all the bloody time). All this adds up to make me wonder what the hell anyone even sees in "mainstream reviewing" at all.
I guess it's not fair to paint all the critics of In Bruges with the above brush: some hated the movie for entirely shallower reasons. I read one review that claimed the writing was purposely "anti-american" for the sake of being edgy (or something like that). However, the amount of "anti-americanism" (politically loaded fictional concept that it is) that exists is confined solely to how characters perceive things. Hating a movie because of a character's character (especially one that's not presented entirely sympathetically, as is the case in In Bruges) is truly bizarre. It's kind of like hating carrots because Hitler was a vegetarian. It may be a fact that the character hates americans or Hitler was a vegetarian, but that in and of itself really doesn't make the movie or carrots less good as a result. Well, maybe not entirely true for the carrots thing.
Anyway, In Bruges is an excellent movie that does the one thing movies should do: tell a story. In a world where too many movies just showcase actors and follow focus-group delivered plots, it's a refreshing breath of fresh air to finally see something that isn't one of those two things. I give it a 9.5 out of 10... because i never give perfects (ask my students).
*both these claims appear in critical reviews of In Bruges and (unsurprisingly) without examples to back them up.
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