The Princess and the Frog (2009): Looking Closer's Film Forum
I haven't seen The Princess and the Frog yet, but I'm on the lookout for opinions from thoughtful critics. Check back, for I'll post them as I find them.
Steven D. Greydanus, National Register:
The Princess and the Frog is the first real classic Disney of the 21st century.
...
None of the studio’s cartoons of the last 15 years or so has had both feet firmly in the tradition represented by golden-age masterpieces like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White as well as “silver age” classics like Beauty and the Beast. The Princess and the Frog may not be in the same league as those gems, but it’s the first Disney film since The Lion King that feels like a real heir to this tradition.
...
At the same time, The Princess and the Frog isn’t just a throwback to the Disney renaissance. This is Disney for a new generation.
...There’s a villain with magical powers — but instead of Disneyfied magic, like Aladdin’s friendly genie, the film’s New Orleans voodoo is an occult world of terrifying powers and principalities in which the villain himself is at much at risk as anyone. It’s almost Disney’s most overtly Christian depiction of magic and evil since Sleeping Beauty — though the waters are muddied by a benevolent, swamp-dwelling hoodoo mama in a sort of fairy-godmother role.
... a word that I'd use to describe most of the major creative choices made on the film: nuance. The classic Disney archetypes are represented in the supporting cast, but given new and subtle spins, and none moreso than the Princess itself. Tiana, as voiced by Anika Noni Rose, is one of the most appealing role models of any Disney Princess, and Prince Naveen, voiced by Bruno Campos, has way more to do than most of the traditional Princes in Disney's past.
It's only fair if I'm going to talk about my problems with the way Bella Swan is written in the "Twilight" films, and specifically my concerns about her as a role model, that I also look at how I think this film approaches its responsibility to the younger viewers who are going to see it. The reason it's more important to do this with girl-themed films is precisely because of the way the media talks to girls overall. The media sends very different gender messages, and little boys are serviced in totally different ways than little girls. I am troubled by the way little boys are fed messages about violence and its consequences just as much as I'm troubled by the way little girls are indoctrinated to their roles as secondary people, defined entirely by their men. And when you add the potential complication of dealing with race in a more direct way than Disney's used to... well, you see what I mean about pressure.
"The Princess and The Frog" pretty much nails it in terms of both gender politics and race, and it does it casually, without making any of it central to what you're watching.
Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter:
The narrative behind "The Princess and the Frog" is that Walt Disney Animation has rediscovered its traditional hand-drawn animation, which has been supplanted by computer-generated cartoons. But this misses the point about what allowed Pixar -- which Disney now owns -- DreamWorks and other CG-animation companies to upstage the one-time king of the animation world. It's a thing called story.
So "Princess and the Frog" really marks Disney's rediscovery of a strong narrative loaded with vibrant characters and mind-bending, hilarious situations. Under the direction of veterans Ron Clements and John Musker (the team behind "The Little Mermaid" and "Aladdin") and the watchful eye of Pixar guru John Lasseter, now chief creative officer of Disney Animation, "Princess and the Frog" celebrates old and new: It's a musical fairy tale that dates back to the days when Walt Disney was a person, not a brand. Yet it deftly mingles with the new sensibilities in animation where fairy tales must get fractured, settings must be fresh and humor pitched to many age levels.
Check, check and double check.
This is the best Disney animated film in years. Audiences -- who don't care whether it's cel animation, CGI, stop motion, claymation or motion capture as long as it's a good story -- will respond in large numbers. A joyous holiday season is about to begin for Disney. . . .
The most revolting movie commercial I've seen.
"Bones" is a TV show I rather enjoy for the clever banter, the amusing actors, the slick effects, and the humor, But last night's episode was sickening. Read more
Up in the Air (2009) - A Looking Closer Film Forum
I'm not allowed to post my review of this film before its release date, due to studio policies.
So I'll wait. In the meantime, here are some reviews that have been online for a while now...
1.
Amiable and innocuous, Up in the Air offers a disingenuously smooth flight over choppy waters and rugged terrain. ... Up in the Air is neither funny enough to be a straight comedy nor serious enough to be a telling drama about the human toll wrought by economic crisis. Instead, the film is merely a pseudo-redemption saga that’s pleasant enough in the moment but – despite numerous sequences of laid-off individuals railing in close-up at Ryan about their unjust fate – maintains considerable distance from actually plumbing the raw emotions of its central subject.
2.
It’s bad enough that [Reitman] has a depressingly pedestrian visual sense and relies too heavily on strummy musical montages — his films also purport to sum up, and half-assedly at that, The Times in Which We Live.
3.
...a star's vanity vehicle masquerading as a searching project. As he grows older, Clooney seems to allow traces of anxiety to peek from behind his smirk, maybe even hints of William Holden-like bastardry to come. So far, however, his willingness to play successful men nauseated by their moral quandaries has been undercut by a weakness for cute playing and facile redemption, as if he were afraid that revealing the panic under his grizzled handsomeness might cost him his fanbase of swooning housewives.
It's a weakness in synch with Reitman, who, after the slapdash cynicism of Thank You for Smoking and the alt-weekly snark of Juno, has settled for an anonymous sort of polish. Up in the Air isn't without its behavioral charms, especially in the sexy, relaxed rapport struck between Clooney and a for-once-not-jittery Farmiga. It's a smooth ride, which is precisely the problem in a film proposing to examine a hollow character's malaise. Nobody gets offended, nothing gets questioned, the crowd goes home properly cheered. Expect a cartload of Oscars.
4.
Up in the Air ... has no double or hidden meanings, and precious little is left unsaid through dialog or via voiceover. ... it doesn’t require the viewer to do work or ask questions, and barring a single scene in which Alex and Natalie have a loaded conversation about romantic ideals as Ryan silently listens on, nothing is left open for interpretation –– what you see is what you get. In other words, Jason Reitman does what Hollywood filmmakers are supposed to do. They are supposed to tell stories in the most straightforward manner possible; they are supposed to make their choices seem invisible to the casual viewer so that the stars pop and the Big Emotional Moments sing. That Reitman is perceived after this trifecta as being anything like an auteur in the contemporary sense of the word is remarkable.
Spotted with snippets of mock exit interviews with real recently laid-off Americans, Up in the Air tries hard to embody this moment of national melancholy, but Reitman reveals his hand by setting the opening credits to a light blues cover of “This Land is Your Land.” The song, and the film, are pure American schmaltz jazzed up, its inherent brightness tinted blue but never significantly darkened. Up in the Air is the kind of feel-good film about bad news that has been winning Oscars for decades. Like its opening song, we’ve heard Up in the Air’s tune so many times that it no longer means anything.
And that's why The National Board of Review have just named it the Best Picture of 2009!
Paul Thomas Anderson and Philip Seymour Hoffman: Together again.
My heart rate is elevated, and I'm typing as fast as I can.
My favorite American filmmaker is working with one of my favorite American actors, and the film looks like just the thing to stir up an exciting conversation.
A Serious Man (2009)
[This review was originally published at Good Letters, the blog hosted by Image.]
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There’s an envelope full of cash on Larry Gopnik’s desk.
He didn’t put it there. But he can guess who did. A student in Larry’s physics class has been begging him for a good grade. This money looks like a bribe. Nevertheless, when Larry goes seeking a confession, he’s given a confounding answer....
“Accept the mystery!”
Larry is a play-by-the-rules kind of guy. He cares about precise measurements; he knows the exact position of the property line around his suburban Minnesota home. He cares about fairness; he believes his college should grant him tenure. When he discovers that Mrs. Samsky, his sexy neighbor, sunbathes nude in her yard, he shows more restraint than King David ever did. He stays where he belongs.
Everyone else may live lawlessly, but Larry’s trying to be “a good man.” He’s determined to refuse the mystery money.
So you’d think that God would smile on Larry for his righteousness, and give him a blessing.
But no, blessings elude Larry at every turn. Somebody’s writing anonymous letters to the tenure review board, trying to tarnish his reputation. The Columbia Music Company is billing him for albums he didn’t order. His son is twenty dollars in debt to the schoolyard bully, and his daughter’s a thief.
Arthur, Larry’s brother, is camped on the living room couch like a curse. When he’s not scribbling numbers in a notebook he calls “The Mentaculus,” he’s tending to a sebaceous cyst that oozes like the ears of Madman Mundt in Barton Fink. (Is Arthur a dybbuk, like the malevolent phantom in the Jewish folk tale that serves as the movie’s prologue?)
Worst of all, Larry’s wife Judith is having an affair with their windbag of a neighbor, Sy Abelman. And Sy’s gestures of condescending sympathy for Larry are somehow more infuriating than the affair itself.
If this were a typical Hollywood comedy, we’d know what was coming: flimsy platitudes about the power of positive thinking, or about some kind of generic “faith” (probably faith in oneself).
Instead, this is a film by the Coen Brothers. Only the naïve will anticipate a happy ending. Don’t get me wrong—A Serious Man is several barrels full of laughs. But it’s as serious-minded about suffering and misfortune as any film I’ve seen, including the classic Vittorio de Sica film, Bicycle Thieves.
In Bicycle Thieves, Antonio Ricci—unemployed for two years and desperate to feed his family—finally gets a job. But it requires a bicycle, so he and his wife sell their bedsheets to pay for one. Things are looking up... until that bicycle is stolen on his very first day at work.
Throughout the rest of the movie, Antonio hunts the thief. He’s right to be upset. But watch what happens as he becomes increasingly desperate for justice. While the poor gather for Mass, Antonio never pauses to look heavenward for mercy. Instead, he takes more reckless measures, eventually behaving worse than the thief.
By contrast, the Coens’ persecuted family man takes time to seek spiritual counsel. Surely one of the community rabbis can justify the ways of God to Larry.
But the rabbis are little help. One tells him to look on the bright side. Another tells him a confounding tale about signs and wonders that have no explanation. And the legendary Marshak? He has more important matters on his mind.
Just as Antonio is reduced to wicked behavior, so we begin to see cracks in Larry’s character. He may be inviting catastrophe by way of a crime that Coen Brothers fans have seen before—passivity. The troubled title character in The Man Who Wasn’t There would have been sympathetic if he hadn’t been so...pathetic.
First impression: I think A Serious Man is a stronger film than The Man Who Wasn’t There. It’s scripted as efficiently as Fargo, with a rumble of impending doom that recalls No Country for Old Men. As in Barton Fink, men who proclaim virtuous ideals end up compromising. As in so many Coen films, money brings out the worst in seemingly decent people.
But A Serious Man is distinct in the Coen canon for its aggressive theological inquiry. They know this territory—they’ve talked about growing up in a community similar to Larry’s, where they received some kind of religious instruction six days a week. Their storytelling shows that they’ve considered the various rationalizations we construct in order to cope with hardship. And they see common flaws in those structures—hypocrisy and self-interest.
We demand justice, but when justice turns its harsh gaze upon us, we beg for grace. On his deathbed, the atheist W.C. Fields worriedly sifted the Scriptures “lookin’ for a loophole.” We want a program that’s blind to our sins, brings justice to others, and makes everything right—that is, working everything to our advantage.
Larry’s brother Arthur may manipulate the numbers to win at gambling, but his choices add up to judgment. As Larry whines, “I've tried to be a serious man. I've tried to do right," we know that his righteousness—whatever its measure—is not a shield against calamity.
So, if the law cannot save us, what’s left? Lawlessness? A Serious Man occurs as the Summer of Love is heating up, but the promiscuous pothead Mrs. Samsky does not make these “new freedoms” seem very promising. Like The Big Lebowski’s nihilists, those who “believe in nothing” look like buffoons.
Is there any glimpse of hope or grace in the Coens’ vision?
Maybe.
They seem too sharp to miss the profound irony of their own fleeting joke near the end of the film. During a bar mitzvah, a rabbi lifts the Torah scroll. But his arms are trembling at the weight of the law. As the burden becomes too much, he loses his balance and utters an exasperated wheeze: “Jesus Christ!”
Did the Coens recognize the possible significance of that punchline?
I don’t know. For now, I’ll accept the mystery.
Five Auralia's Colors Confessions: "The Merchant's Daughter"
Run for your lives! It's...
The Top 5 Confessions about Auralia's Colors, Chapter 4 - The Merchant's DaughterRead more
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
2009 UPDATE: It's been more than five years since I wrote this review of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and my appreciation for this film has only deepened since then. It went on to become quite an important film to many of my colleagues, so important, in fact, that when the team of a dozen or so film critics at Christianity Today voted on the films that were most important to them in 2004, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind took the #1 spot on the list. Remarkable, considering how many excellent films were released in 2004. (As a matter of fact, while Christianity Today's readers probably anticipated that The Passion of the Christ would be the CT critics' choice for #1 movie of the year, The Passion didn't even place in the Top 10.)
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If you could, what memories would you delete?
Recently, I set up shop in a new office on the campus of the university I attended several years ago. I don't believe in ghosts, but the ol' alma mater is haunted with memories. Over there—the classrooms in which I tried to comprehend Donne, Dostoevsky, and Derrida. And there—the cafeteria where I consumed mass quantities of grilled peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. And there—a sprawling lawn where my first rock band survived a disastrous performance. It's a joy to have this mini-tour of the past every day.
But the place is also crowded with painful memories of a failed friendship, broken trust, and humiliation. The prospect of revisiting those memories again made me pause before relocating to this place. I did not want to be reminded. But what a blessing awaited me! Several places of personal significance had been demolished and replaced with strange new structures that mean nothing to me at all! This has had an interesting effect—I never dwell on those memories anymore. It is as if those memories have been deleted. I have to work hard to recover them.
In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the characters have that option—they can have their unwanted memories erased.
Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) supplies this service through Lacuna, an obscure company promising to improve your life by sifting out signs of things you wish you had not experienced. Mierzwiak and his irresponsible, pot-smoking staff (Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, and trainee Elijah Wood) schedule consultations with customers to target bad memories. They box up all tangible evidence of the memories (photos, gifts, mementos, diary entries), file them away, and then get into the customer's brain for "memory surgery." Cards are sent out to any related individuals, informing them that they have been deleted from the customer's memory: Would they please, out of courtesy, refrain from contacting that person again?
That is exactly what Joel (Jim Carrey) decides to do with memories of his ex-girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet). He's upset about the breakup, which occurred when Clementine decided to axe Joel from her own memory.
Most films about technological breakthroughs tend to dwell on what would happen if something went wrong. So, of course, as Joel undergoes Clementine-erasure, something goes terribly wrong. While technicians fuss over 3-D brain schematics, he is stranded, unconscious, wandering in a dream-state of confused memories. As he staggers through overlapping episodes of his past, he encounters Clementine for the first time … again. He remembers his infatuation and all of the things that first caught his attention. It makes him reconsider his decision. But what can he do?
As he falls into panic, details of this memory world begin to disappear. Memories are being sent to the Trash Bin Folder of the doctor's computer. Frantic, Joel grabs Clementine—or at least the memory of her—and starts heading for the dark alleys and bomb shelters of his mind. The chase is one of the most exhilarating and original scenes in the history of chase scenes.
Anybody who saw Being John Malkovich or the Academy-award-winning Adaptation will quickly recognize the signature surrealism of writer Charlie Kaufman. Kaufman seems obsessed with exploring his characters' psychological makeup, and Sunshine feels like the fruition of ideas that were beginning to grow in his previous scripts.
While Kaufman's previous scripts seemed tailor-made for the quirky talents of director Spike Jonze, this story seems a perfect fit for Michel Gondry, who makes Eternal Sunshine a memorably zany rollercoaster ride through a wonderland of bizarre landscapes and shifting reality. Gondry's first feature collaboration with Kaufman, Human Nature, received discouraging reviews and vanished from theatres. But Eternal Sunshine plays to his strengths. Gondry's most memorable works have been his brilliantly designed music videos for artists like Bjork, and Radiohead. This great feature-length work is sure to earn him even grander projects.
Gondry maps out Joel's past with breathtaking imagination and sleight-of-hand, creating a visual collage from Joel's memories that is a masterpiece of editing and aligning entirely different times and places. It's not a new idea; the great Andrei Tarkovsky's masterpiece The Mirror is a surreal and profound poem sewn from the threads of his memory. But Gondry's a more playful, puckish storyteller. He cannot resist the wild possibilities presented by Kaufman's script. Sometimes it's as if Joel's past has been disassembled like a LEGO project and haphazardly pieced together into something frightening and new. I've never seen something so true to the experience of dreaming, from the way people's faces morph from one thing to another to the way events take place against incongruous backdrops. These imaginative tangents are enough to show up most Hollywood productions as creatively bankrupt. Gondry joins a short list of directors—alongside Jonze, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Richard Kelly, Sofia Coppola and David O. Russell—who will inspire a new generation of inventive artists.
Gondry gets great work from his lead actors. For the first time, Jim Carrey seems less like a maniac and more like the kind of guy you'd like to talk with over coffee. It's his most mature performance, something we caught glimpses of in The Truman Show. On the other hand, Kate Winslet has spent far too long in stuffy, stifling roles, and here she lets her explosive energy break through. She makes Clementine an irresistibly attractive flibbertigibbet whose whims are as surprising as the changing color of her hair (which shifts from "Tangerine" to a color stolen from a Tom Waits lyric—"Blue Ruin.") She's the highlight of the film, and the first appealing female character Kaufman has devised.
The supporting cast is also surprising. Wilkinson is properly preoccupied with his technology, so that we sense he is driven by something he himself would rather forget. His assistants are a baffling bunch—amusing, entertaining, but hardly compelling. Ruffalo seems to squint at life through a thick fog in spite of his thick glasses. Elijah Wood, in his first significant post-Frodo role, plays a likeable trainee until we see what a fiend he is at heart. Kirsten Dunst turns her role as a foolish secretary into something complicated and broken. But their part of the story feels too frivolous to pull off the emotional and dramatic turn that takes place in the final act.
Eternal Sunshine is unique in the Kaufman canon for other significant reasons. Being John Malkovich portrayed human beings as irredeemably depraved and selfishly opportunistic. Adaptation's characters, in their desire for personal satisfaction, descended into base behavior as well. Eternal Sunshine's characters may have damaged their lives beyond repair, but they are fumbling toward wisdom that should be clearer to the viewer than it is to them.
Most importantly, the film offers powerful insights about relationships. Joel and Clementine have a chance of enduring if they refuse to forget the things they love about each other in the midst of hardship. Memory erasure, like most break-ups and divorces, is just a flight from the fact that love is hard. Even though Joel and Clementine are not married, viewers may come away with a deeper understanding of marriage, about submitting to each other at great personal cost for a higher reward.
Kaufman also emphasizes our neediness as human beings. Most Hollywood films tell us we have everything we need within ourselves. Eternal Sunshine indicates that we need each other, even in those times when togetherness disrupts happiness. Happiness is based on temporal, unstable things, but joy comes from transcending the temporal and holding on through all the waves of infatuation and falling out, lust and letdown, delight and disappointment.
Great art reflects the truth in a way we could not have seen by any other means. Kaufman's chronologically confused comedy is a unique, personal, bittersweet film, and I don't know any other filmmaker who could have made anything like it. I won't call it a "masterpiece" so soon after its release; I've come to believe that no one should jump to that conclusion until at least a decade has passed. But it won't surprise me if this film is someday considered one of "The Great Movies." It takes its audience on an extraordinary emotional journey, even as it weaves many different storytelling genres together. It's wide open to interpretation, but I suspect that many will cherish it.
Eternal Sunshine makes me glad that I cannot delete bad memories in moments of weakness. Those unpleasant echoes of failure and betrayal inform my decisions every day. They keep my ego in check and help me steer clear of similar pitfalls. They also remind me that my hope lies not in my capacity to run my own life, but in the possibility of grace.
Five "Auralia's Colors" Confessions: A Basket of Blue Stones
Ready or not, it's...
The Top 5 Confessions about Auralia's Colors, Chapter 3 - A Basket of Blue StonesRead more
November 24th Will Forever Be Known as The Day The Muppets Sang "Bohemian Rhapsody"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY