The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)

In the Twilight review that I posted just a little while back ago, I kind of bit my tongue about my feelings on the Edward-Bella romance.  I thought that New Moon would be a better chance to share my feelings, since most of the action that happens in that movie stems from the problems and drama of their relationship.  So now that I am reviewing New Moon, I’m just going to let it all out.

I think that the romance between Edward and Bella is one of the most contrived, dangerous, thoughtless, irresponsible, immature love stories in all of fiction.  I know that I am going to repeat some of the same problems with the relationship that other critics have pointed out before, but that’s only because these problems are serious and true.  It literally twists my stomach into knots just knowing that at least one Twilight fan is going to read the books or watch the movies and think that this is a good example for a decent relationship.  News flash!  It’s not.

The whole basis for Edward and Bella’s relationship is not compassion or compatibility, but mutual dependence.  Edward wants to be with Bella because 1) he is attracted to her blood (again, creepy), and 2) watching over her satisfies a protective instinct of his.  Bella wants to be with Edward because…well…I’m not so sure why.  I’ve thought long and hard about this, and the only explanation I can come up with is that she is extremely insecure about herself.  Proof of this comes from the opening of New Moon, when Bella begins to fear that someday she will be old enough where Edward would not be physically attracted to her anymore.  In fact, that is probably the main reason why she begs Edward to turn her into a vampire, so that she would remain young and attractive forever and be with Edward always.

Mutual dependence is not the means to a stable relationship.  They don’t love each other for the sake of who they are.  They love each other because they each expect to receive something in return.  And when they keep expecting the other to deliver on their own fulfillment, eventually they are going to demand more than the other can provide.  I believe that is the heart of the problem to the whole “changing Bella into a vampire” plotline that seems to invade the majority of the films’ screentime.  Bella wants to change so that she can be with Edward safely and eternally, but Edward refuses to let that happen because he doesn’t want the loss of Bella’s soul to weigh down on his own conscience.  No matter how they decide, someone is going to get hurt by the other.

So you would think that Bella (and pretty much everyone else) would be better off if she’d let go of her attraction to Edward and learn how to live a normal life without him.  But apparently the story still wants to make us believe that this romance is a once-in-a-lifetime, “Romeo and Juliet”-styled love story and that Bella and Edward are meant to be together.  A number of characters, including Bella’s father, talk to Bella and tell her that it would be better if she tried to live a stable life and stay away from strange folk like Edward, and they are completely right!  But the writers of New Moon play it as if these people don’t understand Bella’s love for Edward and that Bella should do whatever it takes to still be with him, even when he apparently doesn’t want to be with her anymore.

Bella’s attitude gets especially infuriating in New Moon when Edward leaves her for a good chunk of the movie.  We see her sitting in her room for months, moping and looking like trash.  She distances herself from all of her friends and anyone who cares for her.  She even screams in the middle of each night from the dreams she has about Edward.  She is just absolutely crushed that her pale, whiny, emotionally abusive boyfriend isn’t there to stare into her eyes or tell her how pretty she looks.  She gets so desperate to see Edward again that she even begins to endanger her own life, by cliff diving into tumultuous waters and suicidally riding around in motorcycles, just so that she could see spectral visions of him warning her about these dangers.  Bella is reduced down to a pathetic, suicidal, self-pitying sociopath when Edward is gone.  Remember back in the first movie, when Bella tells a female friend that she is “a strong, independent woman” and that she should “take control”?  That line is a joke after seeing the way Bella acts in this movie.  Rosie the Riveter, Bella is not.

And THEN, to try and forget about Edward, she begins to spend a lot of time with the other local monster in this movie, Jacob the werewolf, by having him help her repair motorcycles.  It is clear that Jacob has a crush on Bella, and Bella keeps putting him on, despite the fact that she still wants Edward back.  She tells him how beautiful he looks and how buff he is for his age.  She even rubs his six-pack muscles on more than one occasion.  But even with all of the attention Bella has given Jacob, she still constantly talks about Edward and how she yearns to be with him again.  Talk about mixed signals!  And in the end of the movie, Bella tells Jacob that she loves him, but she would still rather be with Edward.  That moment made me want to throw something at the TV screen!  My God, she keeps giving Jacob this sliver of hope throughout this whole movie, and yet she doesn’t reciprocate any of his feelings for her.  No wonder Jacob comes across as a potential rapist in this movie (“You know what we’ll do to you.  I won’t have a choice”).

I hope I have said enough for you all to see how Bella is one of the most loathsome female characters in film history.  She takes what I assume is her first love, which pretty much boils down to a high school crush, and twists it into an epic, star-crossed romance that must impact the lives of everyone around her.  She manipulates two men, Edward and Jacob (three if you count Michael, which I don’t) to stick by her and make her feel wanted, and then becomes appalled when they naturally become jealous of one another.  Instead of just telling Jacob that he has no shot with her, she keeps egging him on just so that she can have a “backup boyfriend”.  I don’t know if she is this cruel in the novels, but I can’t imagine her actions changing much for the film adaptation.  Either way, like I said before, it pains me that there could be some teen or preteen girls who could turn Bella into their role model and believe that it is alright to treat boys this way.  That is why I would never let any of my daughters watch these movies or read these books.

Sorry, I blabbed so long about how horrible the romance is, I almost forgot to mention how horrible the rest of the movie is.  The dialogue still has the first film’s trademark woodenness and lack of direction.  The special effects, although much better than the first film, still look amateur.  The acting is drab and boring.  The characters aren’t compelling or fleshed out.  The storyline is nearly nonexistent, like the first movie.  To call the soundtrack excruciating would be too kind; it consists of nothing but moaning, shoe-gazing emo rock that serves as a black hole for any sort of energy that the film desperately needs.  The design of everything is unoriginal and typical.  And, worst of all, the movie seems very long, with both its passionless dialogue and its meandering plot.

The first movie earned 2 Stars in my review, but it could’ve easily earned 3.  New Moon earns 2 Stars, but it was so close to receiving only 1.  In many ways, New Moon is a better movie than Twilight, but the story in New Moon just pissed me off so much that it became nearly unbearable for me.  New Moon’s only saving grace is that it has some great unintentionally funny moments in it, like when Edward backhands Bella across the room to save her from Jasper.  I figured that if I gave Troll 2 a 4 Star review for its campiness, I could give New Moon some credit as well.  I would recommend New Moon only to serious riffers, but if you want to take any part of this movie seriously, I recommend that you stay far away from it as if it is trying to feast on your jugular.

Rating:  2 Stars

Distributed by Summit Entertainment

Running time:  130 minutes

Twilight (2008) Review

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part I is going to come out in theaters pretty soon, so I thought I would do what I did for Transformers: Dark of the Moon; give a sort of a retrospective of the series so far, leading up to a “recommendation” for the new movie.  Look for the recommendation about a week or so before the movie is released.

Twilight is a phenomenon that I will never fully understand.  I know, I am nowhere near the target audience for the books, which would be preteen and high school girls.  However, even if I were to put myself inside the shoes of one of these girls, I still think that I would’ve lost track of the original Twilight novel within the plethora of similar paperbacks aimed at teenagers.  Every fan of the book that I know has said that Stephenie Meyer’s writing isn’t that interesting or unique.  I can’t say for myself, because I have absolutely no desire to read any of her books.  But you know what?  I’m actually glad that the movies based on the books are getting made.  That way, I can avoid reading the novels and still gain some insight into this vampire craze so I can judge it for myself.  I’m not coming with any preconceptions of the films (as horrid as they may be).  I’m trying to keep an open mind of it all.

So here’s the first installment of both the film series and the book series.  And since it’s the first installment, we can see the biggest problem with this movie already.  The first Twilight movie is sort of an introduction to the characters and the setting.  As such, much of the film’s running time is devoted to introducing the many characters and the atmosphere for the rest of the series.  And the end result:  NOTHING.  Literally nothing interesting happens during most of this movie!  There is a pretty intense action sequence at around 30 minutes towards the end, but by then, it’s just too little too late.

You would think, with the hour and a half they had to spare, that they would have plenty of time to develop the characters.  However, I do not feel like I know any of the characters, or even their names.  Instead of meaningful dialogue that would allow the viewer to get to know this wide cast of characters, there is endless small talk that ultimately leads nowhere.  This is especially evident in the restaurant scenes, in which Bella and her father talk about what they ordered and who they talked to earlier that day and so on and so forth.  And you will really enjoy helping Bella and Edward out with their biology homework as they name off the phases of mitosis!  Sure glad this time wasn’t used to talk about the Cullen family or about Edward’s past or about Bella or about ANYTHING!

And not only is the dialogue boring, but it SOUNDS boring too.  I had to rewatch certain key scenes of this movie because the actors’ voices were so drab and uninterested, I couldn’t pay attention to them the first time around.  I know we are dealing with a bunch of angst-ridden, brooding, Daria-esque teens here, but there has to be SOME energy given in order for me to care about the plot.  The boring-sounding dialogue, combined with the morose, blue-tinted environment of this story, just drags the whole movie down, and a film about baseball-playing vampires shouldn’t drag like this.

Now let’s talk about the “heart and soul” of the Twilight series:  the epic romance between Bella and Edward.  I have a feeling that I will get more into this when I review New Moon, so I’ll try to be brief here.  In Twilight, we get to see the beginnings of this timeless, inspirational love that has swooned teenage girls the world over.  And, I’m sorry, but I just don’t see the connection here.  Bella and Edward, or I should probably say their “actors”, just feel awkward around each other.  I’m sure that their relationship was much better established in the book, but on the screen, I never felt like they shared anything.  There are scenes that “assume” that they are talking to each other, but the director doesn’t think that it is important to make this explicit, like the film audience doesn’t need to see this romantic development.  And the dialogue that they do share sounds like they came straight from an insecure love poem written by a needy emo kid (“You’re like my own personal brand of heroin”, “I’d rather die than stay away from you”, “And so the lion fell in love with the lamb”, etc.).  It just sounds like an awkward high school fling to me, not a “love of a lifetime” that this movie tries to sell us.

And while we’re at it, doesn’t it strike anybody as odd that this 108-year-old vampire is stalking and making out with a 17-year-old girl?  She turns 18 in the next movie, so I guess it’s fine then, but in this movie she is still under the age of consent.  What, is it okay because he looks like he is roughly the same age?  I would like to see how that defense holds up in a real-life statutory rape trial.

There is also kind of an unevenness as to the amount of information we know about the two main characters.  We get to follow Edward around quite a bit.  We meet his whole family, we see his home and his room, we get to find out some of his history, and we even play a game of baseball with him and his family.  For as much we are introduced to Edward, we hardly know anything about Bella.  We know that her parents are divorced and she once took ballet lessons, and that’s pretty much it.  We don’t really see any reason for her cynicism and angst other than the fact that being a child with divorced parents sucks.  To me, Bella is like a blank slate, a featureless avatar that the teenage reader can “become” and replace.  This story, after all, is essentially a romantic fantasy that the reader can escape into.  Maybe in the book, this sort of protagonist works out fine for the story, but it doesn’t make Bella look good on the big screen.

And Edward, oh my God!  Even if you forget the fact that he is 91 years older than Bella, Edward still comes across as extremely creepy in this movie.  He frequently watches Bella in her sleep, even long before they started going out, and he also watches her often when she is off on her own.  He even tells her that the main reason he is attracted to her is because he thinks that her blood smells so sweet.  And yet, he tells Bella in a scene that it is HER who should keep herself away from him.  Wow.

So far, I have mainly complained about this movie, but I don’t really hate it as much as you might think.  Before I began to play this movie, I thought I would absolutely detest it, but I ended up thinking that it wasn’t that bad.  Some of the photography was pretty cool, the concept was intriguing, the style was occasionally very inspired, the ONE action scene shown was pretty riveting, and I really liked the whole Cullen family, even though they weren’t featured all that much.  I thought that somewhere in this film, there was potential for it to become great.  However, with the absolutely depressing environment, the horrible special effects, the cheesy sophomoric dialogue and the lack of character development, the bad immensely outweighs the good.

And on that note, I cannot in all honesty recommend this film, even to fans of the book series.  The movie tried so hard to match the gothic poeticism of the novel that it was almost bounded by it.  Had there not been as much pressure to remain faithful to the source material, we could’ve seen an adaptation as bold and adventurous as, say, The Shining.  Instead, we are left with an inferior, uninspired teenage flick that fails to impress even the most diehard Stephenie Meyer fans.  Oh well, here’s to hoping that New Moon will be better.

Rating:  2 Stars

Distributed by Summit Entertainment

            Running time:  121 minutes

Playing Columbine (2008) Review

            Before I really got into movies, I was a big fan of video games.  I owned every Nintendo system, from the NES to the Wii (except the Virtual Boy; couldn’t waste my time on that) and played them constantly.  I was mostly a Mario fan, but I enjoyed other series like the Legend of Zelda, Fire Emblem, TimeSplitters, The Sims, and Portal.  When I went to college, I didn’t have any time to play these games and instead shifted my focus to movies, since they were more concise forms of entertainment that I can watch while doing homework.  Still, video games hold a special place in my heart, as they formed the basis of my childhood.

That is why I take the whole “war against violent video games” personally.  Ever since the genesis of video games, there have been groups of politicians and parents that have condemned the violent material in them.  Games such as the Grand Theft Auto series, Doom, and Mortal Kombat have been called obscene and immoral by the likes of Senator Joe Lieberman, Hilary Clinton, and the now disbarred lawyer Jack Thompson.  They claim that these “murder simulators” are desensitizing children to violence and aggressive behavior, and that protective laws such as the Family Entertainment Protection Act will help children from exposure to these violent attitudes.  They still see video games as a children’s medium, despite the fact that the average gamer is, and has been for a while, well over the age of 30 (see page 2 of this document for the statistics of 2011 from the Entertainment Software Association).  It’s pretty evident that the landscape is changing for the infantile medium of video games, and it is time for the public to acknowledge this.

This is where the 2008 documentary Playing Columbine comes in.  Playing Columbine is directed by Danny Ledonne, an independent filmmaker and the creator of the controversial computer game, Super Columbine Massacre RPG!.  The game recounts the events that occurred during the Columbine High School Massacre of 1999 through the eyes of the two killers.  You play as one of the killers as you prepare for the attack and kill the students that try to get in your way in the high school.  The documentary covers the controversy of the game, the reactions from the Columbine survivors and the surrounding media, and the history of controversial art across many media.

I have to admit, the first time I ever heard about Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, I thought it was an insensitively violent game that pokes fun at the tragedy at Columbine.  That was my impression from the silly title of the game and the scant number of reviews of it that I read.  After watching this documentary and a playthrough of the game, however, I realize that the game does not celebrate the massacre at all, but instead tries to educate the gamer about the actual events of the massacre, the possible motivations of the killers, and the hysteria that resulted after the killing spree.  On the website in which you can download this game, there is also a forum used for discussion about the game and its themes.

There isn’t that much evidence to prove that Super Columbine Massacre RPG! is an exploitative game.  You do get to kill students, but you can hardly revel in the deaths; instead of vanishing away like in every other video game, the dead corpse of the person you just killed remains on screen until you walk away from it.  Near the end of the game, you see real-life photos of the aftermath, including the dead bodies of the two killers after committing suicide and the terrified faces of the people who experienced this tragedy.  There is little joy found in killing these students, yet it is profoundly disturbing seeing these events through the eyes of the monsters.  Ledonne says in the film that his intent wasn’t to create a murder fantasy that celebrates the Columbine massacre, but rather to display the true actions and motivations of the killers that have been largely hidden from the media.  Watching the gameplay footage of the game, I was emotionally impacted by how these guys could have committed these horrific acts

Now you may think that it is a bit too egotistical to make a documentary about your own game, and in fact Ledonne does spend a lot of time talking about the meaning of his game and the controversy surrounding it.  But he also gives a lot of time for conversation about other independent games that have received similar treatment as his, like JFK: Reloaded and Waco Resurrection.  He also leaves time to showcase the Columbine tragedy, the reactions of the survivors, and the implications that violent games such as Doom helped fuel the massacre.  As the documentary goes on, Ledonne and his game, Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, feel less like the featured subjects of the film and more like the springboard for other, more interesting topics.

This film makes the right decision in bringing in a lot of interviewees from various different careers and perspectives.  Not only do we get independent game developers and fans, but we also have experts and PhD holders from various fields like literature and sociology, journalists working both in and outside of gaming, people who have experienced the Columbine massacre either directly or indirectly, and even Jack Thompson, the most universally loathed person in the gaming world.  They all create a deep, intellectually engaging discussion that covers a wide array of topics, like the violent effects of gaming, the role of violent games in real-life tragedies, the artistic value of games, sensational media, censorship, and many others.  I can safely say that I have never seen a piece of non-fiction that talked about video games this maturely and intelligently.

What I got out of this documentary is that the main reason why the video game media is picked on so much by politicians and other outsiders is because they don’t recognize video games as art.  They only see games as toys for children, which is a perspective that is growing more and more untrue as time passes.  This debate is mainly spurred by a generational gap; these political groups are mostly composed of older people who never grew up with video games.  They don’t understand other people’s fascination with them, so they treat them with harsh scrutiny and even censorship.  It’s the same thing that happened with films before the Hays Code; people didn’t understand the importance of the relatively new medium of film and sought to heavily censor it.  We’ve seen this same type of debate with rock and roll music and role-playing games, and those debates have both died out over time.

Despite the fact that the Supreme Court officially declared that video games have the same First Amendment rights as other works of art back in June, people still argue that the interactivity of video games disallows them from being labeled as art.  I happen to disagree; I believe that the interactivity of video games has the potential to emotionally impact its audience in ways that can’t be done in more passive forms of art, such as film or paintings.  If done wisely, the gameplay, the story that is told through the gameplay, the locations, the sounds, and the in-game dialogue can all meld together to create truly meaningful and impactful experience.  In the documentary, they point out Darfur Is Dying, a game in which you play a starving child from Sudan who is running away from the genocidal soldiers.  Mainstream examples that I can think of now is the Metal Gear Solid games and the Portal games, both series telling great stories with its gameplay.

I know I’m going a bit off topic here, but I would also like to comment on an article written by Roger Ebert with the now falsified title, “Video games can never be art” (you can read the article here).  As much as I admire the man and his ideas, I believe he relies too much on his flimsy definitions of art to dismiss games.  He says that the main reason why video games cannot be art is because “you can win a game” (paragraph 11).  So?  You are typically working towards an objective in a game, but that doesn’t mean that the game itself doesn’t have artistic meaning.  How you accomplish these objectives and what it means for your avatar can have some deep meaning behind it.  Ebert is also very quick to dismiss the game Braid, one of the most brilliantly artistic games that I’ve ever had the pleasure to play.  He snubbed the time-manipulating aspects of the game and said that the story “exhibits prose on the level of a wordy fortune cookie” (para. 17).  Obviously, he had never played the game, or else he would have discovered how the gameplay complements the story and creates a symbolically rich experience that wouldn’t have had the same impact if expressed in any other way.

But what really galls me is when Ebert asks near the end, “Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art?” (para. 23)  Why?  I’ll tell you why.  Because they deserve to have the same rights as filmmakers, authors, and composers to express themselves and to be protected from those who actively try to silent their voices.  Because they are tired of being looked down upon by those in other factions of entertainment and art.  Because they need the support of filmmakers, authors, etc. in order to stop the over-protective politicians and parents from censoring them.  Because game programmers, level designers, story developers, sound effect designers, art designers, and game composers have worked too hard for their crafts to be considered trivial by non-gamers.  Because video games and, in general, interactive media are the future of art and entertainment, and we need to recognize them as such.  This cannot stand anymore.

However, I can somewhat see where Ebert is coming from with his opinion.  Game developers nowadays seem to exploit the things that most gamers want in a video game just for the sake of sales and not for the artistry.  That’s why we see a ton of first-person shooters that all feature the same dark gray environments, the same macho gritty protagonists, the same ugly looking alien cannon fodder, and the same basic story clichés.  But Playing Columbine frames an optimistic picture for the future of artistic games.  It doesn’t showcase the big studio-backed, high-selling, shallow games, but rather the independent ones that directly address social issues.  These games are slowly building up an audience, and will hopefully someday be the games everyone will think about when they envision the video game industry.

Playing Columbine isn’t a perfect documentary.  Its production values are low even by documentary standards, and I found certain sections of the film, like the part about the Slamdance Film Festival, to be a bit too self-indulgent.  Still, Playing Columbine is a surprisingly intellectual and stimulating discussion on the role of video games in society.  Gamers will love it for providing very convincing arguments for the free artistic rights of video games.  Non-gamers will hopefully appreciate the perspective this film takes on video games and side with the independent developers.  No matter where you are coming from on the great video game debate, Playing Columbine is a fresh, bold film that takes the whole debate to a higher level of maturity and foresight.

Rating:  4 Stars

Distributed by Emberwilde Productions

            Running time:  94 minutes

Forrest Gump (1994) Review

            Forrest Gump is a 1994 film adaptation of a Winston Groom novel about a man (played by Tom Hanks) with a below average IQ who, despite all odds, lives a very successful and rich life.  The film won numerous awards, including Best Picture at the Oscars, and quickly became a favorite among both audiences and critics.  It’s one of the most quotable films in recent memory, with lines like “Life is like a box of chocolates” and “Run, Forrest!  Run!” becoming staples in the lexicon of pop culture.  It has even inspired a chain of restaurants called Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, now at over 30 locations across America (I once went to one in New Orleans).  It is extremely difficult to avoid this fondly remembered film, since it is played and talked about EVERYWHERE.  I’ve fortuitously seen it multiple times, and I am sure you all have, too.  So what is the point of reviewing it now?  What could I possibly say about this film that could change how you view it?

            Wait, I got something:  This film is extremely stupid.

Now before you start raging against me, let me just say that overall, this is a good movie.  Robert Zemeckis, who directed such technical masterpieces like the Back to the Future movies and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, once again proves his special effect mastery with Forrest Gump.  The illusion of Forrest being part of historical archival footage, while looking a bit dated by today’s SFX standards, was probably revolutionary in the day.  Also, I was very impressed by the effect used to edit out Lt. Dan’s legs after the Vietnam portion of the film.  The cinematography and the acting were pretty good as well.  The person who stole the show for me was Robin Wright as Forrest’s high school sweetheart, Jenny.  The scenes with her were easily the best of the show, especially the excellent scene in which Forrest and Jenny talk on the bridge and you are made to believe that Jenny was going to jump off of it.  Combined with the kickin’ nostalgic soundtrack, we have a well-made movie that emotionally engages the audience, for the most part.

However, for every good thing that I can say about the film, I can match it with an insultingly idiotic moment that completely took me away from the plot.  While I thought the movie was good as a whole, it’s these little moments that take away all of the believability and sincerity of the otherwise inspirational story.  So let’s tackle a select few of these moments together, shall we?

Right from the beginning, we get a stupid moment when we learn how Forrest got his name.  Forrest was named after General Nathan Bedford Forrest, a distant relative of his and the first Great Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.  In a narration, Forrest said his mama named him that to, and I quote, “remind [him] that sometimes we all do things that, well, just don't make no sense.”  No.  That is a horrible reason to name your child that!  You want to constantly remind your child about his racist family history instead of, you know, just talking to him about it and making him understand that way?  What kind of life lesson is that, anyways?

Another moment that “just don’t make no sense” is later in the movie, when Forrest meets President Nixon.  Nixon tells Forrest, with cameras all around, that he can stay the night at the Watergate Hotel, the same night that the infamous break-in occurred.  It is revealed that Forrest was the one who inadvertently exposed the robbers that night when he saw their flashlights in the windows outside.  My question is, why would Nixon recommend that hotel to Forrest the same night as the break-in?  It just seems weird to me.  Furthermore, why would he publicly tell him this in front of a bunch of video cameras?  Wouldn’t you think he’d want no association with Watergate, knowing the consequences if they got caught that night?  The whole setup just seems too contrived and coincidental for it to be believable or even funny.

Forrest has two chance meetings with famous rock stars.  The first one was with Elvis Presley, who boarded in his mother’s house when he was still a child.  Forrest still had his leg braces at this point, and when Elvis played on his acoustic guitar, Forrest would awkwardly dance to the music with his bent knees in a style that was inadvertently similar to Elvis’ legendary gyrations.  The implication here is that Forrest influenced Elvis’ dancing style before he actually broke out as a music star.  What’s the point of that?  Why does Elvis’ dancing need to be explained away in such a manner?  Are you trying to sell to me, movie, that Elvis was trying to imitate a physically handicapped boy whenever he danced?

The second chance meeting with a rock star comes later in Forrest’s life, in what is easily the silliest and most embarrassing scene in the movie.  Forrest is on the Dick Cavett Show, alongside John Lennon, to talk about his trip to China.  When Forrest describes some of the things he saw in China, Lennon reacts with a line from his famous song, “Imagine”, implying that it was Forrest’s description of China that inspired Lennon to write this song.  The way this is conveyed is absolutely ridiculous; we never see Lennon contemplate what he’s saying, he just blurts out, through poorly edited mouth movements, a random line from his song.  Not only is the scene unnecessary and implausible, it insults the great songwriter Lennon by making him look like a buffoon who put trivial lyrics into his songs.

Now let’s talk about Forrest, obviously the most important part about this film.  You may think, from this and my Larry Crowne review, that I am hating on Tom Hanks, and I’m not.  I have nothing against the actor.  While I don’t think Forrest Gump is the best role in Hanks’ career, he did make the character very likable and interesting.  The studio was fortunate to have Hanks, too, since he demanded that the film had to be more historically accurate before he agreed to take the role (So, Forrest Gump is supposed to be historically accurate now?  Elvis really learned how to dance from a cripple?)  Forrest, however, is one of the aspects of this movie that I dislike the most, and it has more to do with the way his character is written than with anything else.  Allow me to explain.

So one of the core themes of Forrest Gump is that, despite his intellectual limitations, Forrest had lived a very fulfilling life.  It can be seen as an inspirational tale for some, along the lines of the 1989 film, My Left Foot.  In the film, Christy Brown is an Irishman who, despite being born with cerebral palsy, grows up to become an intellectual artist/writer.  Before doing so, Christy had to face ridicule from his family and peers, be forced into therapeutic education that took away from his everyday life, and suffer through heartbreak as girls he fell in love with refuse to accept him as a lover.  Christy had to go through many trials and tribulations in his life, dealing with his severe physical handicap, and what comes out of it is an inspirational tale of success and acceptance.

Now compare this to Forrest Gump, who never really worked hard to achieve anything.  He did get out of his leg braces and later become a great runner, but he never trained to do this; he merely discovered his natural ability after a group of bullies started chasing him.  He did become an international ping-pong champion, but this again was natural talent that was accidentally discovered.  I guess he worked hard in starting his shrimp company, but he only achieved success when a chance storm literally sunk all his competition.  There has never been any sort of drama as Forrest accomplishes these great feats, and he never really seems to be interested in his triumphs.  He just takes them as he comes.  When a character is simply handed every trophy that he can get without really working for it, his story becomes less inspirational and more fantastical and, dare I say, hokey.

It seems like everything that Forrest touches turns to historic gold.  He always ends up being in the right place at the right time.  Forrest effortlessly accomplishes so much, you are bound to lose track of all the great things that happened in his life, so here’s a partial list.  Forrest:

·        Meets Elvis Presley before his stardom and influences his gyrating dance style

·        Breaks out of his leg braces and becomes the star running back for the University of Alabama

·        Participates in George Wallace’s segregation stand-in at the University of Alabama

·        Earns a Medal of Honor for saving 6 people’s lives in Vietnam

·        Plays for the U.S. Army ping pong team and travels across China

·        Speaks publicly at a huge peace rally by the Washington Monument alongside Abbie Hoffman

·        Meets John Lennon and inspires him to write “Imagine”

·        Meets THREE different presidents

·        Accidentally uncovers the Watergate Scandal

·        Gets on the cover of Fortune magazine through his shrimping business

·        Becomes obscenely rich after purchasing a significant amount of stocks in the young Apple Computers

·        Makes national news with his 3-year-long coast-to-coast running spree

·        Inadvertently teaches Michael Jackson how to moonwalk after slipping on a banana peel

·        Accidentally discovers the Holy Grail in the back of his sock drawer

These are all amazing things that happened in Forrest’s life (except for the last two, obviously).  Any one of these moments could have been used as the defining moment for a character in any other inspirational film, yet Forrest Gump hogs them all.  It is even more ridiculous in the novel version, as he becomes an astronaut, a chess player, and even a freakin’ professional wrestler!  (Not kidding)  A character doesn’t have to be God in order for him to live a successful, inspirational life.  It’s just so out of control here!

And yet, despite everything that I just complained about, I am still recommending this movie.  I do this because even though I personally do not like Forrest Gump, I have to admit that it is a great, solidly made film that really tugs on the heartstrings of the viewer.  The movie is at its best when it focuses on Forrest’s relationship with Jenny and other characters rather than on his golden road to success.  If you can somehow manage to get over the ridiculously idiotic moments of this film, I’m sure you will find Forrest Gump to be an emotionally engaging film with nice, subtle special effects to look out for.  Just keep in mind, as the old saying goes, that “stupid is as stupid does.”  And since this film does some stupid crap…well…I’ll let you draw that conclusion.

Rating:  3 Stars

Distributed by Paramount Pictures

            Running time:  141 minutes

The Blues Brothers (1980) Review

I feel like I have seen a great number of movies in my lifetime so far, and yet I also feel as though there is a great number that I still need to see.  Thanks to my new Netflix account, I am busily catching up on the movies that I have somehow missed beforehand.  For example, I have just seen for the first time The Big Lebowski, Aliens, Patton, Robocop, and a bunch of other classics this summer alone.  As embarrassing as it is for me to admit this, it is also just as depressing to think about how I could have seen these movies long before I suffered through train wrecks such as Corky Romano.  I had no reason NOT to seek out these films that I knew I’d love, but if I had to blame anything, it would probably be my overachiever-ness in college that took up most of my film-watching time.

That said, I am shocked, just completely SHOCKED, that I hadn’t seen The Blues Brothers long before.  I mean, it is a musical comedy classic featuring some of my favorite genres of music and starring Dan Aykroyd and John freakin’ Belushi.  It’s like this movie was tailor-made for me, but for some reason, it had always escaped my consciousness during the time when I really got into watching films.  However, I have redeemed myself; I have seen this film just about a week ago, and I am ready to review it.  So, was it the amazing comedic masterpiece that I heard it was, or was it a major disappointment?

Sorry to feign the suspense, because the answer is obvious.  I LOVED this movie!  Loved loved loved loved loved this movie!  Loved it!  Loved every energetic soulful foot-stomping musical number in it.  Loved the well-timed well-acted comedy moments in it.  Loved the chaotic, large-scale set pieces that make up this whole film.

And yet, I feel a little guilty when I say all this, because (other than the fact that I ripped off Roger Ebert) I am pretty sure that The Blues Brothers is not that good of a movie.  I mean, it has great production value and entertainment value, but its story is very lacking.  It hardly has a story; the few moments this film spends on any sort of plot development only serve to set up the next comedic beat, the next musical number, or the next ridiculous car chase scene.  The characters are one-dimensional and easily motivated, and overall the movie seems to celebrate its shallowness.

So the main plot of The Blues Brothers follows Elwood (Aykroyd) and brother “Joliet” Jake (Belushi), the latter of whom just released from prison.  For some reason, they decide to visit their old home, a Catholic orphanage, where they learn from “The Penguin” that it will be closed unless it pays $5,000 for late property taxes.  The brothers offer to give the nun the money right on the spot, but she refuses it, knowing that it was ill-gotten.  As the brothers figure out how to come up with the money legitimately, Jake has a religious epiphany at an evangelical church (during a high-spirited musical number, of course) and realizes that they can earn the money by bringing their old blues band back together and playing gigs.  So during their so-called “mission from Gyad”, they somehow get mixed up with the state police, who endlessly pursue them as they make their way through their tour.

So that’s about as much as we get for story in this film, and really, the plot points are only excuses for the brothers to get to the next funny bit or the next musical number.  And that’s really the meat of this movie:  the outrageously absurd, epicly scaled moments of music, comedy, and chaos that reach almost Michael Bay levels of excessiveness.  They are so crazy, so over-the-top, you are never sure whether you should feel amazed or insulted, because many of these moments don’t make any logical sense.

Take, for example, the brilliant final chase scene, in which the Blues brothers race to Chicago’s city hall building in order to pay off the orphanage’s taxes.  They aren’t just being chased by a couple of police cars, but literally HUNDREDS of them, along with a rival country band, a firemen brigade, the SWAT team, the U.S. military, and even a couple of neo-Nazis!  Police cars are piling up and crashing everywhere, some automobiles fall from great distances and crash through pure pavement, and when they finally apprehend the brothers, everyone and their grandmother is pointing a huge semi-automatic at them.  And what started this whole chase?  A traffic violation?  Resisting arrest?  Maybe it was for all of the damage and mayhem they caused with their band.  But does that really call for this massive manhunt for these two guys?  I’d be surprised if this many people were looking for Osama Bin Laden at any given time!

I deeply apologize for comparing this movie to a Michael Bay film earlier, but it makes me think of an important question:  How can I hate other movies that pounds the audience with excessive action and comedy, like any given Transformers film, and yet completely adore this movie?  I think I have multiple answers.  First, in The Blues Brothers, the comedy and action is actually well done and comprehensible.  Secondly, all of the crazy stunts and car crashes are done with practical effects, not CGI.  If this movie were made today, there’s no doubt that everything in the climatic action sequence near the end would’ve been computer rendered, which would have saturated the effect of all this mayhem.

The final and most important reason is the fact that this is a musical.  Musical movies, by their nature, are highly illogical; people never sing and dance out of the blue like this in real life!  You can forgive a lot in a musical film’s story if it has excellent music, beautiful showmanship, and the right amount of energy, and Blues Brothers has all three.  Musical guest stars pop up randomly with hardly any explanation, but they provide the greatest moments of this film.  Aretha Franklin sings a rousing rendition of “Think”, Ray Charles nearly causes a riot in the streets with “Shake A Tail Feather”, and even “The Godfather of Soul” James Brown goes all gospel preacher on us with “The Old Landmark”.  This is true dance music.  And by dance music, I’m not talking about the industrial sludge produced today by the likes of Jason DeRulo or Lil’ Wayne.  I’m talking about real, energetic, upbeat, “get up and wildly jerk your body in ways that somewhat resemble dance movements” dance music, just like in the good ol’ days of the 60’s and 70’s.  And the action and comedic beats of the film perfectly compliments the jubilation of this uproarious soundtrack, making for a wildly entertaining, almost euphoric experience.

Also, unlike Transformers: Dark of the Moon, The Blues Brothers does the city of Chicago justice.  Instead of just being a random, anonymous city like in DotM, Chicago shows its character in every frame of this film.  From the wonderful landmarks of the city shown in key scenes to Elwood’s delightfully thick Chicagoan accent, we are immersed in the Windy City’s culture.  Most importantly, though, is the music.  Chicago is known as the epicenter for the development of blues, jazz, soul, and gospel music, and just as Chicago’s music scene is a mixture of these genres, The Blues Brothers Band’s play list is a beautiful amalgamation of these various styles.  We can literally hear Chicago’s musical history play out in the soundtrack of the film, from the electric Chicago blues that The Blues Brothers Band favor to its early influences of Southern blues after the Great Migration in the early 1900’s.  Even the legendary Chicago jazz bandleader Cab Calloway has a small role in this film, leading up a memorable rendition of “Minnie the Moocher” in his classic big band style.  This movie is like one big, long love letter to the city of Chicago and its music, made into a feature-length film.

Finally, I’d like to mention the brothers.  To me, The Blues Brothers perfectly personify the word “cool”.  Everything that they do is cool.  They dress cool, they act cool, and they talk cool.  Even when they are getting chased by the cops, getting nearly blown up by a pissed-off Carrie Fisher, or preparing for a crazy car jump, they do so in a calm and controlled manner.  The most iconic image I can think of is when the brothers are sitting emotionlessly in the Bluesmobile while a line of cop cars, as far as the eye can see, follow their trail.  When they’re on stage, though, they really get into the music, and half the fun of the film is watching them energetically perform their great numbers.  These guys are the iconic symbols of “cool”, and I wouldn’t be half-surprised if their look didn’t somewhat inspire the look of Vincent and Jules from Pulp Fiction.

The Blues Brothers was kind of a hard movie to review.  I absolutely love it, and yet the critic inside me wanted to dislike it for the shallow way its story was told.  However, I feel that the most important aspect of any movie, its entertainment value, should be the deciding factor to whether I should recommend it or not, and this movie was entertaining as hell!  You will curse the couches in your living room for taking up your dancing space, as this movie will revitalize your love for music.  Combined with the excellent humor and the ludicrous car stunts, The Blues Brothers is the ultimate movie for any party.  No wonder many consider this one of the best SNL spin-off movies ever made, along with Wayne’s World.

Oh crap, that reminds me!  I haven’t seen Wayne’s World yet?!!  Man, I suck at this.

Rating:  4 Stars

Distributed by Universal Pictures

Running time:  133 minutes