Moonrise Kingdom

Audiences typically fall into two camps when it comes to Wes Anderson movies: you are either under his awkward spell or are baffled that anyone likes his stuff.  Both reactions are fair.  As much as I enjoy some of Anderson's work, I never recommend it to a friend without preparing them for oddness.  Personally, I find myself falling into neither category when it comes to Wes Anderson.  I used to really look forward to his movies --- the one-two punch of Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums will do that --- but was disappointed by The Life Aquatic and had hoped for more from The Fantastic Mr. Fox.  If I had to categorize my attitude toward a new Wes Anderson film, I think "the novelty is running out" sums it up best.  It's a little strange, then, that I saw Moonrise Kingdom in the theater.  I was on a family vacation and we wanted to see something that would be appropriate for anyone from my mother to my thirteen-year-old cousin.  And we chose a Wes Anderson movie.

Yeah, it was an odd choice, I'll admit.  But the main characters are right around the age of thirteen.  Maybe this could appeal to the Twilight/Hunger Games generation.

…yeah, okay, probably not.

Moonrise Kingdom begins with Sam (Jared Gilman), a twelve-year-old Khaki Scout, running away from Summer camp in 1963, leaving behind only a letter of resignation.  Sam was the least-liked member of his troop thanks to his incurable oddness, but he was an excellent scout.  His scoutmaster (Edward Norton) can't find him and turns to the local police, Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) for help. 

Keep your mouth open.  That helps you look for things.

This story takes place on an island, but that small area is apparently too large for these authority figures to track Sam down.  Meanwhile, Suzy (Kara Hayward) has vanished from her home, leaving her lawyer parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) and three younger brothers behind without an explanation.  In fact, they wouldn't have noticed she was gone if she had not left a note explaining that she was borrowing her brother's record player for two weeks, without permission.  As Suzy's parents start to look for her and enlist Captain Sharp in their quest, it becomes apparent that the two kids have run away together.  And so begins an odd tale of tween romance amidst mediocrity.

They look so in love!

Since this is a Wes Anderson movie, discussing the acting is almost a moot point.  It’s not that they do a bad job, by any means, but Anderson has such a strong hand in directing his cast that their performances are always peculiar (to put it nicely).  The hardest thing about Moonrise Kingdom is that the lead characters are children.  I liked Kara Howard; her performance definitely reminded me of Irene Gogovaia (lil' Gwyneth Paltrow) in The Royal Tenenbaums, and that’s not a bad thing.  She was cold, distant, and not nearly as awkward as her male counterpart.  Jared Gilman wasn’t as good, but he was definitely awkward as hell, in the tradition of other Wes Anderson leading men.  The more I think about his performance, the more I like the little things; it's hard to put a finger on what he was doing right, but it probably has something to do with how well he deadpanned his lines. 

The classic look didn't hurt, either

I was glad to see Edward Norton having fun here.  It's been too long since he's been in a movie I've enjoyed, and he sure played up the sincerity of this character to a goofy degree.  Bruce Willis was decent.  I've never thought of him as a subtle actor --- "yippe ki-yay motherfucker" will do that to a reputation --- and I don't think he benefited from extra awkwardness.  He wasn't bad, though, and the moments where he seems most engaged (with Sam or through the CB radio) were pretty solid.  I was definitely disappointed by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand, though.  I love both actors, but neither had enough time to shine; Murray's depressed character had some great moments ("That's not enough" was a great line) and McDormand's performance showed promise, but neither character was developed much in the final cutting.

I know how you feel, guys

The rest of the recognizable supporting cast was pretty good.  Harvey Keitel had a very bit part, and he was fun to watch.  Bob Balaban played the omniscient narrator, and I think his performance sums up Wes Anderson's direction; he was odd and awkward, making you either hate or love his scenes.  I enjoyed them.  Tilda Swinton --- whose bandwagon I haven't jumped onto just yet --- was very good as Social Services, and I think she would benefit from a larger role in another Anderson movie.  My favorite supporting character --- and an early leader for my annual "Best Bit Part" award --- was played by Jason Schwartzman.  It's not that his role was terribly difficult, but he had some of the film's best lines and delivery.  Plus, as an internet-ordained minister (because why not?), I love his willingness to marry people.

P.S.: Nice 'stache

The direction of Wes Anderson is hard for me to judge.  I love the effort he puts into his films (story, script, set design, supporting material, etc.), and Moonrise Kingdom has the same depth of experience that fans are used to.  All the book excerpts that Suzy reads?  Written by Wes.  You can also assume that any paintings or interesting fabrics you see in the movie were also made on his express direction.  I don't think anyone can fault Anderson for the effort he puts into his movies, even if they dislike his work.  Anderson works strangely with actors, though.  This is a slow movie, filled with many pauses and very few visible reactions.

Example of a typical Anderson reaction shot

Your opinion about the acting will probably formulate your opinion on the film as a whole.  If you like the tone and feel of other Wes Anderson movies, you will feel right at home in Moonrise Kingdom.  If you're unfamiliar with his work, just imagine silly things happening to people who don't understand levity, and that will give you a basic understanding of what the acting is like.  On the whole, I liked the acting and direction here, but it certainly is not for everyone.

If this doesn't make you smile, this film may not be for you

I should point out that this PG-13 movie is primarily rated that because of sexuality.  I thought it was kind cute and (very) awkwardly believable, but my wife was absolutely repelled by the incompetent sexual fondling that happened in a particular scene. 

Not surprisingly, it's the underwear dancing scene

It wasn't intended to be anything other than innocent and (maybe) realistic, but if you get uncomfortable when you see awkward sexuality, consider yourself warned.

Moonrise Kingdom is pretty enjoyable.  I thought the pre-teen romance was handled extremely well and there were a lot of fun moments from the elders in the cast.  Unfortunately, few of those elders had fully developed character arcs.  That wouldn't matter too much normally, but the script spends a lot of time on the adults in the cast, with only Willis and Norton appearing to find anything close to closure.  That is my main problem with this particular film.  There is a larger problem with this movie, though, and that is how similar Moonrise Kingdom is to the last few Wes Anderson movies.  The editing, storytelling, sets, title cards and acting are all unique among this year's crop of films, but they are nothing special when you compare them to Anderson's body of work.  I love that Anderson leaves such a personal touch on his films, but I'm getting tired of him using the exact same unusual style for each movie.  He is a clearly talented fellow, but needs to expand beyond the curious niche he's found if he hopes to continue developing as an artist.  I'm not saying that Wes Anderson needs to genre-hop like Woody Allen (although comparisons between the two are natural), but I hope his next effort is weird and awkward in a different way.

For the record, my thirteen-year-old cousin declared that Moonrise Kingdom was the worst movie she had ever seen.  And she's seen all the Twilight movies.

Gosford Park

Watching The Mirror Crack'd last month reminded me just how much I used to enjoy Agatha Christie novels.  Sure, they're a bit dated, but there is something I find appealing in a whodunnit with a limited number of suspects.  Luckily, there are very few whodunnits made into motion pictures, which means that it is relatively easy to find the most popular and critically-acclaimed entries in the genre.  According to a two-minute long internet search I conducted, the only famous whodunnits of this century are Gosford Park and Identity; I sure as hell wasn't going to subject myself to Identity again (John Cusack, please make better movies!), so I opted to watch Gosford Park.

The premise for Gosford Park is pretty straightforward, although the relationships between the characters are anything but.  Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon) and Lady Sylvia McCordle (Kristin Scott Thomas) are entertaining for the weekend.  Their extended family and their servants all descend on Gosford Park for a few days of prim-and-proper 1930s British etiquette and dinners.  The servants defer to the needs of their masters, and the masters defer to Sir William, who has more than a few family members dependent on his generosity for their income.  Sir William, though, has had enough with generosity and plans to cut off a few needy family members.  The lives of the wealthy are not just their own, though; many among the help have intimate (read: sexy) knowledge of the masters.  With all the secret sexiness and financial desperation in the air, it is not a huge surprise that Sir William is found stabbed at his desk, at a time when almost anyone could have slipped away and done the deed.  It is a surprise when it is revealed that the stab was not the cause of death; someone else had killed Sir William, before he could be murdered by someone else.

Lower left: the look of a man who finds out there is a line to murder him

The cast of Gosford Park is large and ridiculously noteworthy; the ensemble is so large, in fact, that it is difficult to gauge the acting quality for most of the cast.

It is, almost but not at all literally, a cast of thousands

For the upper class characters, Michael Gambon stands out as the patriarch/victim; I became familiar with Gambon through Harry Potter, so I enjoy it when he plays characters with a bastard streak in them.  Kristin Scott Thomas was solid as your typical woman-married-to-a-wealthy-man-much-older-than-her, although I thought she was at her best when she was dealing with Ryan Phillipe.  Maggie Smith was fun as a crotchety old witch.  Camila Rutherford got to look dazed and confused.  I don't think I've ever seen Geraldine Somerville in a role outside of Harry Potter's mother, so that was mildly interesting.  Charles Dance didn't make much of an impression on me.  Tom Hollander was kind of wimpy in his role, but it was better than the pompous one he played in Pirates of the Caribbean.  Jeremy Northam, who is rarely in anything I want to watch, was surprisingly likable and actually sang quite well in this movie.  Bob Balaban (along with Maggie Smith) quietly delivered most of the film's humor.

Hilarity!

While not quite upper class, comedian Stephen Fry makes a short appearance as a humorously inept (but surprisingly plausible) police inspector.  The help were, surprisingly, given (by my estimates, anyway) a little more time to shine.  Helen Mirren had the meatiest role and was predictably excellent.  Emily Watson was also very good as the character that shows the point-of-view character, meekly played by Kelly Macdonald, how things work at formal functions.  This was a good film for long-established Brits; I thought Derek Jacobi had one of the better sub-sub-plots, and Alan Bates was solid as the head butler.  Richard E. Grant provided some very low-key humor, which suited his snooty character just fine.  Ryan Phillipe got to play a character with a twist, which he managed to not completely screw up.  Clive Owen rounded out the underlings by being rude and mysterious whenever he wasn't undressing me with his eyes.

There is just a crap ton of actors in this movie, and a surprising few made a lasting impression on me.  I haven't seen many of Robert Altman's films (please don't recommend The Player to me, it makes my eyes roll more than a teenage girl talking to her mother), but I know he likes to play with large, well-known casts.  I thought that worked in his favor in Gosford Park.  Really, the biggest problem with movie mysteries is that the audience knows that certain actors are destined to have important roles because they are well-known.  Having such a big cast, filled with recognizable actors makes both the victim and killer a lot more surprising.  As far as the standard pillars I judge directors by (cinematography, editing, cohesive storytelling, and actor-handling), Altman is fine, although nothing fantastic.  Instead, he focused on adding layers of nuance to this film.  Yes, it's a murder mystery, but it is also as much about the British class system as my favorite Pulp album.  And that class commentary invites a lot of moments for subtle humor, although I wouldn't qualify this as a comedy.  Still, Altman takes a pretty simple idea and makes it enjoyably complex.

But not enjoyable for everyone

For such a clever work of direction, I was not terribly impressed with the story.  Altman and Balaban come up with the general story, but I found it surprisingly predictable.  Normally, I would be disappointed by that --- I immediately called Ryan Phillipe's secret and figured out Clive Owen's rather quickly --- but there was thankfully an extra twist to keep things interesting.  Still, I was hoping for this movie to take the mystery part a little more seriously.  If it feels like Altman is just using the mystery plot as an excuse to delve into the cultural politics of the British class system pre-World War II, that's because he is.  I really don't mind the subterfuge, but I wish I had gone in knowing that, because I was looking forward to the whodunnit.

I think I appreciate Gosford Park for what it is, but it didn't blow me away.  I didn't see any stellar performances or find myself shocked or appalled by any of the characters.  The plot was decent, but not great.  The commentary, while occasionally funny, was not as sharp as I would have expected, especially given current views on servitude, homosexuality, empowerment, and romance.

1930s view: Scandalous!  2012 view: Where'd his fist go?

What Gosford Park provides is a solid mystery with a good cast, some good performances, and enough light humor to keep for being too depressing.  Given the number of Oscars it got nominated for (it won for its screenplay, which I didn't love!), I was hoping for more.  Maybe this is one of those movies you enjoy more after the initial viewing; having the suspense of the plot out of the way could conceivably make some of the especially subtle humor stand out more, I suppose.  If you have some thoughts on the matter, please leave a comment.  As a first-time viewer, I thought this was pretty good, but not great.

And here's my favorite song about class warfare, from Pulp's Different Class:

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

There are tons of science fiction movies about aliens, but Close Encounters of the Third Kind really changed the genre.  When I think of alien movies, I think of alien invasion movies because, let's face it, that's pretty much the only type of alien movie that gets made.  Sure, you might get a comedy like *batteries not included or Paul, but those are the exceptions to the rule.  Alien movies typically feature fearsome enemies, hell-bent on destroying mankind or, at the very least, Danny Glover.

Everyone is too old for that shit.

Close Encounters takes a different approach, and I found my love for the sci-fi genre refreshed by that approach, especially after some of the crappy post-apocalyptic flicks I've reviewed recently.  It's also a plus to watch just about any movie scored by John Williams.

I normally like to take the time to explain the plot a bit in my reviews, but I'm going to skip that step today.  I tried to summarize the movie, but I never really did it any justice.  That could certainly be interpreted as incompetence on my part, but I feel that this is a film that focuses on a sense of discovery and wonder.  Explaining the movie undermines it.  But, briefly, I can say this: a "close encounter" is an alien sighting.  The first kind are UFO sightings, the second kind leave behind physical evidence, and the third kind involve actually meeting aliens.  Average joe Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) has a close encounter of the first (and second) kind, and the largest part of this movie focuses on his struggles in the aftermath of his encounter.

The acting in this film is very solid all around, but Richard Dreyfuss's surprisingly understated performance is what drives the movie.  I'm not a big fan of Dreyfuss, mostly because of his string of hammy roles in the late 90s, but he's actually really, really good here.  He shows great comedic timing, but is able to balance that with some very good dramatic acting, as well.  My favorite example of this is in the scene where he scares himself after his UFO sighting; it isn't funny because of the words in the script, but because his performance is so natural that you laugh because you can imagine doing the exact same thing.  Melinda Dillon doesn't get the chance to showcase as much range as Dreyfuss, but she plays a very good mom character (as evidenced by A Christmas Story) and her panic is surprisingly raw at times.  I also liked Teri Garr as Roy Neary's wife; most films would make her a supportive character, someone who believes her husband's crazy alien theories when no one else will.  Instead, her character did the all-too-believable thing and refused to believe in Neary's X-Files-worthy tale.  What's most impressive, though, is that she doesn't come off as a villain.  Francois Tuffaut makes a rare acting appearance here (he is a famous French director) as the French scientist studying the uptick in UFO activity, and he's perfectly serviceable in his role.  He doesn't really have much of an emotional stake in the story, but I thought he did a decent job.  His interpreter, played by Bob Balaban, is more well known for his straight-faced comedic roles, but he apparently can play it straight, too.

Director Steven Spielberg made Close Encounters right after Jaws, and it really shows his versatility.  Sure, he could make a scary monster movie, but what can he do with a concept picture?  Quite a bit, it turns out.  A lot of the discussions on Close Encounters focus on the special effects, and for good reason.  The different ways Spielberg indicates the presence of aliens without actually showing them are all pretty impressive.  I'm not exactly sure why all electrical devices turn on around aliens, but they make for some very memorable scenes.  And yes, the alien ships look pretty cool, especially for a movie made in 1977.  Focusing on that stuff misses the point of the movie, though.  This is an unusual story.  It's presented as a kind of mystery --- exactly what did they see? --- but, as an audience, we assume that we know the answer (hint: it rhymes with "baliens").  And since we know the answer, there really isn't a sense of revelation in the film.  And yet, it is a compelling movie.  Maybe it is the way Spielberg assembled the film, splicing the big picture involving the French scientist and his discoveries within the narrative of Dreyfuss's character, that makes the movie work.  Maybe it was the way that that "big picture" came together; the scenes in India were pretty cool.  Or maybe it is just the simplicity of the story: aliens want to meet us.  I'm not exactly sure what Spielberg does that captures so much innocent wonder about the unknown, but it is definitely what makes this film so impressive.

"The unknown" is apparently mashed potatoes.

I have to note that I watched the original theatrical version.  There are three versions of the movie available (all of which are in the new Blu Ray package): the original theatrical version, the Special Edition, and the Collector's Edition.  The Special Edition re-edits the movie, removing some scenes and adding a new ending, where we get to see inside the spaceship.  The Collector's Edition includes some of the edits of the Special Edition, but cuts the spaceship interior shots, leaving it to your imagination.  The original theatrical version features Carl Weathers in a small part that was cut in the subsequent versions, as well as a few other scenes that don't really add much to the overall story.

An actual screen shot of Weathers in Close Encounters.  He was easy to miss, I know.

Obviously, I really like this movie, but I am not blind to its flaws.  Its pace can seem glacial if you are not in the right mood to sit and watch it.  The laser light show at the end probably should have Pink Floyd playing instead of John Williams's five-note theme.  I'm not quite sure why electrical devices turn on around our little visitors, but I'm downright confused as to why mailboxes rock back and forth in their presence.  And why is there so much goodwill toward these aliens?  They kidnap people.  They implant images in our brains that compel us into certain actions.  They force creepy, hillbilly-esque people to whistle "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain."  And there's no R. Lee Ermey-type character in this film that wants to blow the little green men back to (space) hell?  That seems very unlikely.  And what about Richard Dreyfuss's character?  His life was ruined by the effects of his encounter, and yet he is enamored with the aliens.  That just doesn't make sense.

See?  I can critique the movie, even if I have trouble summarizing it.  Even with those problems, I still think it is great.  Science fiction is the result of our fascination with the unknown, but the genre rarely conveys that wonder on the big screen.  It's really nice to see a movie that celebrates that joy without being manipulative.