The Culture Beat

I try to somewhat compartmentalize my critical reactions according to the intentions and genre of a film, hence, I expect different stories and goals from different types of movies. For a superhero movie, if it hews pretty close to a cinematic version of what is appealing about the comic book version of a character–Iron Man being a very good example–I’m happy. But if a film’s apparent aims are higher, seeking insight into the human condition with narrative complexity and artistic beauty, I alter my expectations. A Transformers movie isn’t one of those. I don’t necessarily lower my expectations but I don’t judge an orange by an apple’s standards. Lots of critics haven’t cared for the new Transformers movie–they dismiss it as a loud, overlong and junky cash-in on the success of the original blockbuster film.

Transformers started as an animated series based on a line of Hasbro toys that immediately hit it big with boys fascinated by the duality of the toys/characters. By appealing to grown-up guys with fond memories of the 1980s series you’d also of course grab their kids. The new film is by and large a successful sequel with the same ingredients as previously, in fact, it follows the formula so well you can describe the plots of both with the same general thumbnail summary: The titular robots, both the good freedom-loving Autobots, led by the noble Optimus Prime and the evil Decepticons both seek an object the control of which could empower the possessors but spell doom for humanity. In the new film the Rock’em Sock ‘em Robots seek slivers of the destroyed Allspark to gain vital information about power source that will revive their race but destroy the earth. And of course the human hero of the story, Sam Witwicky, played by the mighty likable Shia LaBeouf possesses knowledge in his noggin that the Decepticons want to extract–painfully–so again we have little humans being chased by big bad robots and rescued by good ones.

The script rolls along with director Michael Bay happily blowing up sets and blasting his actors, real and CGI, across the screen from one set piece to the next. To me it galloped like a well-paced comic book with more than enough action executed like only Bay can do. The adolescent sex jokes I didn’t like from the first film must have tested well in the first film because there are more of them in this one–too much for a film that will have lots of pre-teens with their dads–Bay needs to take his young audience more seriously if the studio heads won’t.

I would also have liked to have more interaction between the Autobots–Other than the loyal Bumblebee (and he can only communicate by body language and snippets of audio from the radio) I can barely remember the name of some of them from the first film and they have very little to do except back up Optimus. Yes, this is sort of like wishing Sulu and Checkov had more screen time in an old Star Trek movie but what worked well in a cartoon seems too much to expect in a feature film. Those little gripes aside, popcorn movies rarely come much better than this–the audience in our theater was as animated and joyous as I’ve seen in years and we clapped at the end. Minute for minute, in a summer action movie, I have rarely had as much robo-value packed in as this film–it’s like the Sam’s Club of summer flicks–fun comes in bulk.

If there’s a definition of a sure thing it’s the new Toy Story 3, arriving June 18 of next summer. The trailer shows the gang getting ready for the next chapter in the adventures of the toys who changed Hollywood, ushering in the era of CGI animated feature films. I will never forget the night I saw Toy Storyin 1995; it wasn’t just the incredible animation, it was that the story worked so well that I had the sense I’ve had maybe two other times after movie: This is something New. Pixar, created by George Lucas in the 1980s to experiment with CG animation and sold to Steve Jobs who took it to the next level with wizards like John Lasseter, Peter Doctor and Andrew Stanton’s innovating the use of high-tech computer graphics perfectly melded to storytelling with heart. Last year, The Pixar Story, a documentary released on the Wall-E DVD, told the story of how the Pixar creative team, after being told by executives at Disney to make the characters “edgier,” (and thus much less likable) rejected the Mouse execs’ advice and decided they would tell the story they wanted to tell or not at all–the result was movie history and a string of ten hits and eventual merger with Disney with Lasseter overseeing much of Disney’s creative efforts.

This is bound to blow the doors off next summer’s box office, and be an even bigger Pixar hit, since a new generation of kids who’ve only seen Buzz, Woody and the gang on home video will come to this chapter to see what happens next. I can’t wait. And in anticipation for the 3-D experience, Disney is releasing the first two Toy Stories in 3-D as a double features for two weeks starting Oct. 2. Does it get any better than this?

Pixar’s latest animated film, its 10th, is a sign that the studio’s creative innovations haven’t stopped. Refusing to take the easier path of self-imitation, of safe storytelling so typical of Hollywood, director Peter Doctor (Monsters Inc.) and his team explore one of entertainment’s final character frontiers, old people. Carl Fredericksen is a mid-70s-age old coot, widowed from his beloved wife Ellie and feeling lost in a world that is plunging ahead without him. A character of square shapes relieved only by a round nose, the motif of a man set in his ways, finds the perfect voice supplied by Ed Asner. Childless and frustrated, Carl decides to fulfill his and Ellie’s unrealized dream of exploring a great hidden Venezuelan tabletop mountain by floating there in his old wooden house carried along by thousands of colorful balloons. Unintentionally along for the ride is an eight-year old Wilderness Explorer, Russell. The two unlikely adventurers form the most unlikely buddy team in the tradition of pairing two diverse characters as they float down to the strange world that hold many surprises.

In the past Pixar features have transcended the forms they adopted with inventive variations on their inspirations. A Bug’s Life followed the essential story beats of The Magnificent Seven, and its inspiration, The Seven Samurai transplanted into an insectoid faceoff. Finding Nemo was an under-the-sea Odyssey; The Incredibles followed the basic conventions of superhero comics, and Cars was essentially an automotive Doc Hollywood. But nothing in Up reminded me of familiar forms and the story starts off in Carl’s young boyhood and in minutes arcs through his life with his beloved wife until he is widowed in a touching wordless montage. The rapid-fire gags of Monsters Inc. or the Toy Story films gives way in the film to a more gradual build as characters are introduced, and discoveries are made that begin to tie together the themes of loss and appreciation of both the past and embracing the future with hope. Of course, such heavy material is hoisted aloft by wild chases, stunts and rescues as an adversary emerges to challenge our heroes in their quest. And talking dogs piloting biplanes.

Such an unusual story structure, rather than leaving me with the satisfaction of the familiar well executed, instead left me with a series of unforgettable images, of a house floating through the sky on balloons, using shower curtain sails to skirt a thunderstorm, of Carl dragging his floating house behind him with a rope, an indelible symbol of our sometimes questionable attachment to the past, and of a scrapbook that reveals that a quiet life with the one you love to be a great adventure indeed. This is perhaps the most poignant–but fun– film Pixar has made, and that’s saying something.

Thanks to a very helpful commenter, Emil P., who responded to my post last week berating the new Star Trek film for eliminating Star Trek’s established history in favor of a new one, I can now modify my response. When the aged Spock tells the young James Kirk that an time-traveling Romulan’s intervention at the moment of Kirk’s birth meant Kirk childhood would be fatherless, and that Vulcan would be destroyed eliminating who knows how much of Trek lore, I felt like the franchise and those who loved the original stories had been kicked in the teeth.

But Emil’s comments that followed included excerpts from an interview with one of the screenwriters where he says that in fact, the story was intended to establish an alternate universe that gave Kirk (and company) somewhat different histories. The Seattle Times interview has Orci referring to quantum mechanics theory of “many worlds” of possibilities that they borrowed branch off from the Star TRek “canon” and create a new generation of stories with the same characters without having to write themselves around established events. A key comment in the interview:

Q: You’re referring to the increasingly popular “many worlds” theory about the possible structure of the space-time continuum.

A: Exactly, and we chose that approach not only because it’s the most up-to-date speculation about time travel, but in terms of telling a time-travel story it inherently preserves the established events of “Star Trek” in an alternate reality, and that allows breathing room between those stories and what we’re doing now. It’s also really fun for us, as writers, because “Star Trek” got us into science and now science is helping us to preserve “Star Trek,” which is pretty amazing when you think about it.

Whatever you think about quantum physics, the writers needed a story device that would allow them to “retell” these characters’ stories from scratch that would be viable for those not steeped in all things Trek. I would have like them to have found a way to actually have said that in the film, but it probably would have made a complicated script even more convoluted–just like this. And the purpose of the film was to re-launch the franchise and so for the writers, that theory was handy, but just don’t think about the plot mechanics too much.

This makes me feel better about the film and I may even see it again.

The 1000 batting average of Disney’s Pixar studio seems destined to continue with its upcoming release of the single-syllable summer feature Up, opening May 29th. Last year, I found this marvelous New York Times article detailing Pixar’s unique creative ethos of collaboration that enables the many hands involved in a film’s production to speak up as to what could make it better. I was stunned after reading it, so different was the Pixar approach from the typical ego-driven Hollywood star system of overpaid stars and self-indulgent directors. The studio’s determination to render the best possible story onscreen has led to an unequaled string of hits with no misses.

The latest honor for Pixar was the privilege this week of being the opening film at the Cannes Film Festival. Never before had an animated film opened the festival rather than the work of some critically esteemed auteur director with a “serious” work of art. But the critics gave huzzahs of praise at the PG-rated Up, reminding me of the reaction of another critic to a surprising achievement. At the end of Pixar’s Ratatouille, Remi the rat, who longs to fufill his dream of becoming a world class chef, produces a plate of the titular French dish of stewed vegetables and sauce and has it served to the snobby critic Anton Ego, the scourge of Paris’ chefs. Anton tastes the dish and the wonderful flavors it evokes instantly transports him to memories of his childhood. He is undone that such a simple dish could be so wondrously rendered and resigns his powerful position to underwrite the little rodent’s culinary enterprise. From this report, it appears that the chefs of Maison de Pixar have cooked up another delicacy that will delight both the masses and the critics.

Just . . . Star Trek, no number 11, or subtitle. Riding in on the new wave of popular culture reboots, (Batman Begins, Casino Royale, and Battlestar Galactica) is Paramount’s re-launch of the Starship Enterprise, the studio’s most lucrative franchise. The oft-told story of the little 1960′s network series, canceled after three seasons that went on the become a hugely popular, and profitable synergy engine, spawning movies, four more series, as well as books, toys, and the rest of the merchandize that would fill tables at fan cons around the world.

Star Trek was probably the first property to attain cult status, but was only the beginning of a fan subculture of comics, Lord of the Ring, Star Wars, and many other sci-fi/fantasy mythologies that have commanded both consumer dollars and religious dedication to the various lore of these modern legends. Star Trek’ bright high-tech future, its storied optimism about our life among the stars combined with memorable characters and thoughtful plots fed a need for a fully imagined counter-world of nobility, friendship and idealism, served up with sci-fi action in a spiffy starship that became in essence, a featured character.

The new feature may be timed just right. The franchise was wrung out by the fourth series, Voyager, when its overly familiar 24th century setting and formulaic plots began showing the concept’s stretch marks. By the time Enterprise, set 100 years before the Original Series, even one of the producers, having been working on earlier series to squeeze yet more dollars out of the tired brand, admitted that if he had been a Paramount executive, he wouldn’t have kept old hands on a fading franchise. Clearly Star Trek: The Property needed to lie fallow for a season, and allow some distance for new talent to come aboard and re-think how after over 40 years, the Enterprise could seem new again.

Bringing in J. J. Abrams (Felicity, Alias, Lost, Cloverfield) a genre fan favorite who wasn’t very familiar with concept he was being asked to save for the 21st century, surely disaffected some fans, but intrigued others, like myself, who knew that hewing too close the the old style would be a ticket to failure. Abrams was faced with taking some of the most beloved characters in modern fiction who had always been identified with the actors who played them, to find a cast to play Kirk, Spock and the rest of the cast as younger than we first knew them and watch them become classic again. Whereas numerous actors have played Bruce Wayne/Batman, a character born in the two-dimenionsal comics medium, Kirk has always been William Shatner, and Spock always Leonard Nimoy.

The film’s biggest challenge will be whether it finds the characters’ essence beneath the actors’ style which is the test of whether Star Trek was as character-driven as fans have always believed. I think it can happen. One of the the screenwriters is a fan from way back and while the script doesn’t hew to decades of complex continuity, it’s supposed to tip its hat throughout the film to touchstone elements of the Star Trek universe. Early reviews have been generally positive–though I’m trying to avoid them until after I see it Sunday–so perhaps Abrams will fulfill his commission to take the Enterprise where no spinoff series or film has gone before, to blockbuster-class mainstream box office success, beyond the galactic boundary that kept Star Trek from being a broad based but still cult attraction.

The summer blockbuster season–starting earlier than ever I believe–”officially” begins (despite the better than usual spring box office offerings including Monsters Vs. Aliens and Fast and Furious) with Hugh Jackman’s return to his star-making title character. Sort of a prequel to the X-Men movies, as the new franchise name implies (with a Magneto installment a possibility, the first among Marvel mutants gets his backstory served up with a spandex and leather jumpsuit-free narrative.

We knew the feral mutant with the rapid-healing powers was of indeterminate age, a very long life being a side benefit of said recuperative abilities–now we know he was born around 1835, and, as the trailers indicated, had seen action in American wars up through the 20th century. Logan is not the savage near animal we knew from earlier movies, he’s at this point a really good brawler who’s more in control of himself than his half-brother Victor, who will later become Sabretooth, who’s bigger and with really nasty fingernails. The two find themselves recruits of a special ops team of mutants that becomes too vicious for Logan, and his departure from the team is the precipitating incident of the plot. The movie plays to star Jackman’s leading man strengths and good looks and for a while, I wondered what he meant when he speaks Wolverine’s signature line: “I’m the best I am at what I do, and what I do isn’t very nice, ” I wasn’t sure what he meant. Up to that point, we hadn’t seen Logan demonstrate his skills, so focused on the other team members was the action. In fact, we never see Logan really perform as a special agent per se. It isn’t until he begins his personal vendetta that hints of the animal nature that wants to claws its way to the top are revealed.

Along the way we see various characters from the long history of Marvel’s merry and mean mutants, most of whom we haven’t met before and a treat for X-fans ready to nudge the person next to them with the joy of recognition. No, Wolverine isn’t in the same league as The Dark Knight, or as much fun as Iron Man, but, if you like the character and that kind of comic book action, I think you won’t be sorry you saw it–I wasn’t.

A few months ago Hollywood was fishing for artistic glory as their fall season films vied for Oscar glory and once again a host of prestige films that few people saw insured continued low ratings for the Oscar telecast.
It’s time once again for Hollywood to roll out the hit films that pay the studio mortgage and sends the producers’ kids to nice private schools when their films hit paydirt. This is in effect Christmas for Tinseltown, and for moviegoers, like me, who wait for the next big Blockbuster to immerse us in strange new worlds and exciting plots—and nifty special effects.

Let’s get going—This looks like the busiest May on record with one of the earliest premieres—X-Men Origins: Wolverine revives the X-Men franchise for 20-Century Fox by bringing back only one, now highly paid actor, Hugh Jackman, in the title role of the feral mutant that made him a star. As the title says, we finally get a look back at the very early—say 19th century– days and beyond and before he got those adamantium claws.

Wolverine better get in shape because just one week later, the highly anticipated fanboy event of the year, Star Trek transports itself to a theater near you. This revival of the highly lucrative Paramount franchise could create new stars and perpetuate the property deep into the 21st century.

The wannabe hits just keep coming—the following week, the Prequel Sequel to The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, with Tom Hanks, arrives without the help of the Vatican, where director Ron Howard sought to film parts of the story. I predict less controversy this time around.

Hang on and take a deep breath, one of the biggest summer films arrives just seven days later: Terminator: Salvation, with Christian Bale as grown-up cyborg fighter John Connor plunged deep into his resistance war against mean machines. Like Star Trek, this is another test of whether a venerable franchise can be renewed without its iconic stars, in this case of course, that being Governoator Ah-nold Schwarzenegger.

But what’s this? Another big sequel opens the same weekend—Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, with Ben Stiller is set as family counterprogramming to the brutal battle of the cyborgs—in a crowded field, this is pretty risky.

And, finally, on June 29th, there’s nowhere to go but Up, the latest Pixar film to carry the banner of the worlds most hit-heavy studio.

By comparison, June is a pretty light month—the 5th brings funnyman Will Ferrell’s parodic version of the 70′s Saturday morning adventure series, Land of the Lost—could be great, but, really, how many people really remember that show?

It’s still that 70s decade when June 12 brings Denzel Washington and John Travolta in a remake of the 1974 crime film The Taking of Pelham 123.

We jump way back in time the following week with Jack Black’s caveman farce, Year One, another comedy out of producer Judd Apatow’s laugh factory.

The explosive Michael Bay is back with the sequel to 2007’s biggest hit with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen—this time, I’m hoping to be able to tell the rockin’ sockin’ robots apart.f

Let’s start the next month with the 2 big July 4th releases. The Great Depression saw the first cycle of classic gangster films—will our current recession pique similar interest in a bank-battling criminal John Dillinger, as played by Johnny Depp in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies? With FBI agent Christian Bale on the case, this could be a sleeper hit.

The same week sees the second Ice Age sequel: Dawn of the Dinosaurs as our mammalian heroes are plunged into a lost world of giant reptiles.

For the first time in the summer season, we have a two-week break between new debuts, so you’ll be able to either recuperate or catch up with films you haven’t seen yet.

But then on July 17th: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The teenage wizard’s latest adaptation was pushed back from fall to ensure Warner Brothers got a maximum bang for the buck when more kids were out of school, so it’ll be two years since the last hit sequel of the most lucrative film series in history.

We get another two-week respite to watch non-blockbusters films in release—and they’re out there. I’m mentioning Funny People opening July 31st because it’s the latest comedy directed by Judd Apatow of The 40-Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up and sure to be R-rated. But Apatow’s self-directed films have shown his interest in getting his foul-mouthed boy-men to grow up and accept responsibility and I’m curious about where he’s going with this Adam Sandler—Seth Rogan comedy.

What’s left in the dog days of summer? Sometimes sleeper hits come out of the left-overs-laden, sweltering month of August, but one film aims to reward the audience of guys who in the 1980s played with dolls, er action figures. On the 7th, the arrival of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, will, as the title indicates, possibly launch a new franchise. As Michael Bay proved in the first Transformers film, successfully adapting 80s toy franchises for the 21st century is all in the execution.

As individual films approach, I will be previewing some as well as reviewing most if not all mentioned here. I hope your summer is fun, safe and full of movie memories and ends with you anticipating the DVD releases by November of all the films I’ve discussed so you won’t need memories after all. Merry Blockbuster Season!