Remember "G"? Yeah, me neither. This one is PG. Fine. Singing cartoon animals don't deserve "G" anymore.
DIRECTORS: Christophe Lourdelet and Garth Jennings IMDB fun fact: Garth Jennings directed Son of Rambow. Watch that movie. It's great. I cringed every time I saw this trailer. I wept for society at large, wondering what we've come to as a culture that animals singing popular songs was considered engaging entertainment. I more wept for myself knowing that I would have to see this movie because my kids like bright colors and animals singing. Please understand that most of the positive things I have to say about this movie is with the knowledge that I went into this movie with the lowest expectations possible. This movie is the cinematic equivalent of three gummy bears. Okay, I ate three gummy bears. There was nothing wrong with those gummy bears, but I don't feel like a different person having eaten them. I can't recommend this movie because it is in no way great. I can't slam this movie because it is in no way terrible. It is its own premise: singing animals take part in a singing competition. But this is where I'm going to get nitpicky because I refuse to not notice things. At one point in time, there was a development meeting for this movie. Someone was watching America's Got Talent and thought that he or she could make a kids movie out of this. After all, how many people watch reality TV? (The answer is too many, but this is not the venue for this gripe.) So let's make a scripted (ahem...more scripted!) (NOT THE VENUE!) version of a reality TV show for kids. You know what kids like? Animals. So the characters are animals...for no reason whatsoever. Kids like animals, but let's never really address that they are animals unless an easy joke can be made. In a year where Zootopia wins a Golden Globe --congrats by the way --a movie that doesn't take advantage of the creative opportunities that present themselves is kind of a waste of space. It is weird that this movie is made by the same studio that makes the Despicable Me movies. Normally, I don't point fingers at production houses, but the Illumination Entertainment love tacking Minions onto everything that they make. So this is really more on them. There are a couple of kind of funny moments in the trailer, but this is another example of a movie that shoved all of the creative and funny bits into the trailer. And this might be more of an attack on the trailer in general, but I was nervous to take my kids to this movie because it looked a little raunchy from the trailer itself. As a parent, I was thrilled that this movie was super tame, but what choice was being made by implying that the movie was going to tackle some heavier content? Was it trying to pull in the high school crowd? I did hear some of my study hall students talking about how they really wanted to see this movie, so I guess the marketing strategy worked. Boy, are they going to be let down. I think the big jump between Pixar / Disney and other companies is the cheap jokes. There was about a one minute long fart joke. On top of that, the use of stereotypes may not be offensive by any means, but it seems pretty cheap. (And yeah, I'm guilty. I simply assumed Idris Elba was voicing one of the characters.) The two attitudes of children's movies are "They are easy to make...kids love everything" and "We are going to go into such intense detail that this will be talked about forever." I think the only movie that really meets the Disney standard is The Lego Movie, which is kind of a shame. Sing feels so disposable because every answer is an easy answer. There barely seems to be any love for this movie because it just exists. It's paint-by-numbers and it doesn't have to be. There's nothing to hate because everything is pretty safe, but I don't want to go to the theater just to forget the movie over time. But don't worry, Sing. I won't be able to forget you. My kids will probably watch you a billion times before Frozen 2 comes out.
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Yeah, there's an F-bomb. But this is a PG-13 movie through and through.
DIRECTOR: Damien Chazelle It sold me immediately with the "Cinemascope" opening. That's really all it takes for me. (That might be a commentary on how I'm a poor critic more than anything else, but details make me super happy.) Musicals and I have an interesting relationship. Not terribly long ago, I reviewed Calamity Jane and hated it. I thought it was devoid of substance and very generic. But movies like La La Land are somehow extremely special. I honestly hope the fact that it is something of value in itself and not due to nostalgia and lack of competition. It doesn't really hurt that tap and waltz are the type of dance. Again, I'm a very superficial human being. Damien Chazelle is starting to define himself as the "jazz guy". I loved Whiplash and you can definitely see that his directing style comes out of discussing things he's passionate about. While I don't want to see another jazz movie coming out of this guy, that passion translates out to making a movie that he is clearly very attached to. It is the passion project that really makes me swoon as an audience member. The fact that he honestly loves this movie is in every single cut and light on that set. I will always be a little sad about the still I pulled for the top of this review because there are so many good shots in this film and they all make me second guess what I was doing to begin with. It is an extraordinarily gorgeous movie both in visuals and in tone. Chazelle loves these characters. I get the vibe that Chazelle is Gosling's character and Stone is someone who got away. There is such an angst with everything that is being filmed that I can't help but think that this is some form of musical therapy. But maybe he is just that good of a director. It just seems like a wild coincidence that we have one guy who is totally into jazz and one girl who is totally into cinema and that is being written and directed by someone who directs movies about jazz. Just saying. It doesn't hurt my theory to point out that Stone's character writes her own play. Again, just saying. I'm fanboying over Gosling at this point. I gushed over him in The Nice Guys and now I'm all "he can do anything." My wife said that he was character singing, as was Stone. Yeah, perhaps neither has the most amazing voice in the world, but the production itself is beautiful. Both performances really sell the characters and a not-perfect voice really doesn't sully it. I think I'm often very forgiving of singing talent because singing is hard and the movie gets to be way better when I shut my brain off. In terms of singing, there is a little bit of clunkiness when it comes to the intense dance numbers with a huge cast. The dubbing is a bit obvious in these numbers, which is a shame because those scenes are awesome. (Also, a round of applause to the Emmy cold open for recreating this sequence.) Perhaps the smaller songs are dubbed as well, but they seemed far more organic when it was just Gosling and Stone. Let's also establish that I'm a sucker for the dream ballet. I'm looking at you, An American in Paris. The Dream Ballet really defines what this movie is all about. This is a movie about the magic of Hollywood. It is about creation and art not just for financial gain, but for the beauty of art in itself. Yes, Stone goes out of the Dangerous Minds role, but we quickly see the cheapness and artificiality of the whole situation. These are two artists who struggle to create art. And sure, they're in love, but that love stems out of an admiration for each other. I always get depressed teaching my first period bell because I have to sell artistic passion for kids who desperately want to be in bed. But seeing these characters geek out on each other about what they love is fantastic. These are the movies that makes me want to go out and experience new things. I wanted to be in that jazz club and discover how musicians fight over the solo. I want to work on a Hollywood backlot and see Roman centurions walk past my coffee shop. Neither of these is practical, but that's what passion is all about. It is about passion. That's what Chazelle is really selling: passion. Whiplash is the dark side of passion, but it is about passion regardless. La La Land is the warmer side and I just love that it exists. A PG-13 movie that I'd feel awkward taking my mom to see.
DIRECTOR: Morten Tyldum SPOILERS BASED ON THE CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING IT: Okay, the Internet. I'm officially mad at you. About three weeks before this movie came out, someone on my Facebook posted about boycotting this movie. It was so controversial that no one should see it. I tried ignoring it. I really did. Sure, I probably would have read the article anyway, but I justified reading it under the guise that I might have to discuss such controversy in my film class. "It was my responsibility" and whatnot. So I spoiled the whole movie for myself and read along the the premise about how this was a movie about rape that never really addressed that it was rape and murder. Well, gosh darn it, something rubbed me the wrong way. This movie wasn't coming out for three weeks and the person who posted the review hadn't actually seen the movie. I wasn't itching to see it after that, but I also knew that I wasn't going to be boycotting the movie by any means either. When La La Land was sold out at the time we were going to see it and Messengers was playing instead, we knew what we had to do. Let's put this out right now. Yes, the topic is very icky in the movie. It's wrong what he did...but that's the point of the movie. That's why the movie kind of exists. It is the central theme and it is morally complex and allowed an amazing dialogue to take place between my wife and me. We both found it uncomfortable, but also knew that's what the movie was about. Lauren didn't know much about the movie and was thrilled to see something so complex and thought provoking. I was responding to an article that kind of missed the boat. Let me say this. DO NOT BOYCOTT THIS MOVIE. Don't want to see it? Fine. If you think it is morally wrong to make movies like this, I weep for what art is about. I'm not saying Messengers is necessarily high art, but it is definitely challenging and isn't that the point anymore? They can't all be The Avengers. Science fiction is the genre that criticises the human condition because it can the easiest to allow for allegory. It is a reflection of where we are as a culture and is meant ot make a comment. It's why bad sci-fi doesn't really have a point. It's the good stuff that makes us look at where are culture is going to end up. I was itching to review this. Can't you tell? In terms of actual science fiction action, that's fairly forgettable. I mean, it's fun, but that's not what makes the movie riveting. If anything, it is just meant to appeal to a larger audience. Danny Boyle's Sunshine perhaps does the same concept a little bit better. Casting Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence is always perfect. Their chemistry is awesome, especially when Lawrence hates Pratt. Her highs are very high. Her lows are very low. Both are relatable and both give a sense of grounding to a very high concept movie. I love when sci-fi is about real people in bizarre situations and Messengers really balances that well. Pratt has to be given a certain degree of respect. I know I'm the millionth person to comment that Andy from Parks and Recreation is actually a pretty talented actor, but the guy really hits you in the gut when it comes to a guy dealing with pretty overwhelming guilt. We aren't looking at a Daniel Day Lewis kind of thing, but he really gets the job done in spades. (Also, I just realized that this is a PG-13 movie with a lot of Pratt butt...) If art is meant to be simultaneously fun and challenging, I like that Passengers delivers that. It isn't going to change the world, but I hate that people have rallied around this movie as a knee jerk reaction. If you watch the movie and hate it, then condemn it. But simply assuming a movie is terrible without a full understanding depresses me. The movie is great. There are fantastic moments in it while dealing with an extremely complex situation. I'd go as far as to say I'd watch it again. That's pretty solid. PG. A PG I wouldn't let my kids watch.
DIRECTOR: George Lucas Oh my goodness. At one point, George Lucas was an extremely talented director. This raises too many questions. Did Star Wars destroy a man so badly? Lucas might be the cautionary tale of what instant success does to a person because the man had something that I haven't seen since the first Star Wars. What happens to a person if he can direct something like American Graffiti and then go right into forever being Mr. Star Wars? Before I go into a full critique of this movie, I have to say that this would would share an amazing billing with Dazed and Confused and Everybody Wants Some!! Sure, I haven't seen the last one and Richard Linklater directed the other two himself, but this is a movie encapsulating what being an adolescent meant in the context of a generation. American Graffiti is 1962 small town America. I don't think every town was like this, or else it would simply be a prequel to Mad Max, but this is how Lucas remembers it. Dazed and Confused does the same day in 1976: Graduation Day. Everybody Wants Some touches on 1980. Perhaps we'll get a much delayed '90s film, but there is a tonal similarity to all these movies. They aren't about a single protagonist, but rather the tale of a subculture and the many narratives that they present in a single night. (I'm going to be wildly embarassed if I'm way off about Everybody Wants Some!!) While not going full Casablanca, there is something very special about the fact that this was written not as a nostalgic romp, but rather near the moment. Taking place in 1962 and filmed in 1973, there's not a degree of rose colored glasses. If I went back and filmed a movie in the '60s, it'd be filled with nonstop sockhops and knife fights. Just for fun, I'd have Jimi Hendrix walking across the background holding a sign that simply said, "Ban the Bomb." But the eleven year gap might be just the right amount of time to reflect on childhood from the perspective of an adult without losing the tone at the time. The technology is borderline the same and the political climate isn't all that different. (Okay, sure it is. But you can still complain about the reprocussions of the era.) It is truly bizarre to see Ron (billed as "Ronny") Howard playing his Happy Days character as a pervy version of the same character. I don't know if one performance influenced the casting of another, but without imdb'ing it, I hope that his Graffiti character caused him to be hired on Happy Days. I'm going to establish that Richard Dreyfuss is pretty much given a free pass to play everything. I know that there are probably some less than amazing movies starring Dreyfuss. I can think of Poseidon off the top of my head. But Dreyfuss has many of the same qualities that Philip Seymour Hoffman had. He's a realistic everyday dude that can hold a scene and give it realism. One of my biggest criticisms of George Lucas is that he always lacked the ability to direct actors well. Looking at Hayden Christiansen as my Exhibit A, looking back at the actors in this movie lets me see insight into a very different director. I keep repeating that I'm really not the same person that I was eight years ago and that guy wasn't the same person eight years before that. George Lucas clearly has to be a different individual than what he has presented in recent history. Graffiti is a special effects free movie. It seems much more like a passion project than an attempt to create the ultimate science fiction movie. Perhaps he lost the forest through the trees, but stripping away all of those special effects conventions reveals a fairly masterful storyteller. I know that Lucas created THX-1138 mostly as a student film before this, but this seems his only attempt at clear movie making. I read somewhere that Francis Ford Coppola, as part of his American Zoetrope days, kind of hates what Star Wars did to Lucas. I kind of get it here. This movie is well crafted without all the glitter, which is special. I can't believe that I'm comparing myself to him, but I often pull out from my bag of tricks when directing because I'm afraid to be emotionally vulnerable. Vulnerable means something more to me than glitz and glamour. I don't know if this is someone's adolescence or not. But the thing that really matters is that element really seems to ring true. Flashing back to my Thomas Video days, I remember one of my co-workers crapping all over this movie. One of my "bosses" (I put that in quotation marks because the story is too long to explain) really loved this movie and wouldn't shut up about it. I refused to watch it because he liked it so much and he was the worst. But that's not the movie's fault. I guess I had that Fight Club knee-jerk reaction where I place responsibilty on the film for its fanbase. American Graffiti may not be reality, but there's nothing fake about the movie whatsoever. I want to meet this George Lucas again. I don't want a world without Star Wars. I just didn't want the price of Star Wars to be a world where this director disappeared. Unrated. It might be hard to judge a movie that is entirely made of establishing shots, but I think there might be a "blink-and-you'll-miss-it' thing somewhere in here.
DIRECTOR: Godfrey Reggio I was going to do the whole trilogy at once. I thought, "Boy, this is going to be impossible to write anything about once, let alone three times." But then I didn't watch the sequels in the same sitting and there's a bunch of movies after this. My stupid obsession with my own self-imposed rules will leave me a corpse on the side of a road, filmed by Godfrey Reggio in stop motion. So apparently, I put this on my Amazon wish list not really knowing what it was. When I worked at Thomas Video, people wouldn't stop renting this movie and I decided that I needed to own such a trilogy if I was going to teach film. I'm really snobbly, but there might be a certain line in the sand here. The movie is completely avant-garde, consisting of impressive shots of nature juxtaposed with less flattering views of civilization in the 1980s. Part of me would really have been into it. If I knew what I was getting into and sat in a full theater, gosh darn it, I could see even preaching this movie. After all, I really dug Antonio Gaudi and that was the same format. But I needed to have laundry for this one. Folding laundry allowed me to get engaged in a movie that I was just bored silly to see. I try hiding my phone when watching movies because I consider it cheating to say that I've seen a movie when I nosedeep in Facebook. Again, my stupid rules and whatnot. Within the first ten minutes of Koyaanisqatsi (written from memory), I was already immersed in clickbait. Yup, that's how bored I was. But bringing laundry into this one, I kinda got into the mood that was being established. Let's put this out here right now. I don't dig the message that the movie is presenting. As a guy who gets mildly annoyed by eco-preaching, this idea just shut me off. The movie ends (spoiler...if that's possible here) with the definition of "Koyaanisqatsi'. It criticizes man's destruction of his surroundings. But this movie felt super judgey of people. It showed people eating in fast food restaurants and smoking. Yeah, I'm not a fan of smoking, but how do we know that these aren't fantastic people. It was weirdly judgey and we didn't even know what was going on with these folks. I also dislike the idea that the very nature of progress is detrimental to the planet. For all the negativity in the movie, what about all the joys that technology has brought? Also, this movie is almost without an answer. What should be done? Should progress be halted because the director doesn't care about civilization and culture? As much as the movie is about stunning visuals, which I will grant it, it is almost entirely successful due to the contributions of Philip Glass. I can't say that I'm a fan of Glass, but considering that this more of a mood piece than a narrative of any sort, Glass's choices are very moving in themselves. The intro with the chanting is one of the strongest openings I can think of when it comes to establishing the tone for the film. The images on the cave wall are haunting. Mixing the chants with a violent font allow the viewer to know how the rest of the movie is going to go. I have two more of these to go. I don't know if I've gotten to the root of the effectiveness of these movies, but I also don't love or hate it enough to really delve deeper. Besides, there will be more. Much more. About three hours more when it comes to the sequels. I just know that the food courts of the '80s sold some dirty, lazy food. Nothing was Doritos crusted! This movie was "Approved." Take your Christmas themed tomfoolery somewhere else! This is a wholesome Miracle on 34th Street.
DIRECTOR: George Seaton i never saw this one before. The film class yesterday said that many of the movies they watched over Christmas break didn't count because they had seen them before. Maybe that's what is so appealing about Christmas movies. They are comfort food. Meat loaf is meant to be delicious, not surprising. We watch the same movies year after year. (I missed my annual viewing of Scrooged. If I spiral into a crippling depression, chalk it up to the fact that I'm a needy manchild.) But watching a Christmas movie from fresh eyes was a pretty good time. I enjoyed it more than my wife did, who seemed annoyed that the Christmas movie I wanted to watch was Miracle on 34th Street. I keep beating a dead horse dressed as Santa Claus, but it is weird watching Christmas movies from an adult's perspective. Weirdly enough, Miracle on 34th Street is almost more aimed at adults rather than children with its message of growing up in a cynical world. Of course I wanted Santa Claus to be real in the movie, but I also acknowledge that idea is selfish and I would completely be on the side of the prosecution in reality. When talking about film's purpose, Miracle on 34th Street talks about being vulnerable as an audience member. It is wildly annoying when someone says, "Well, that wouldn't happen in real life." That is the attitude --perhaps passively --that Miracle is trying to break down. Everyone in the story, children included, understand that Santa is a myth. But the movie never really goes into an exploration for the cultural purpose of Santa. Rather, the story takes a childlike attitude to the need for Santa being real as an inherent thing. Since I am an abomination made out of eggshells at Christmas, I have to tell you what scene destroyed me. The little girl who only speaks Dutch. Santerklass? That's right, Kriss Kringle speaks every language and that's all that little girl really wanted for Christmas. I think writing this review and thinking of that little girl might give me insight into the necessity in believing in Santa Claus. Gifts are great and the idea that Santa is incorruptible is special. But even more so, the idea that the world isn't a mundane cash grab is almost more important. Understanding religion is something that is called upon at Confirmation, but that isn't about magic. That is believing in something when the world is telling you that there is nothing to believe. Santa, in a weird way, presents (pun intended) evidence everywhere we look during the Christmas season. He is something larger and bigger than anything else we look at as children. The idea that adults don't believe robs us of something special. It's why teenagers look at me scornfully when I ask for vulnerability and passion. The world is no longer special for them. Thanks, Miracle on 34th Street. I have to acknowledge that this is a special movie to many people. I often discuss how our environment affects the specialness of a movie. I liked this movie a lot, but I really think I'm a bit too old for it. This movie might die out with many of the movies that my generation thought were classics. It's a classic in terms of old Hollywood cinema, but it might be a bit too second tier. I would be amazed if my grandkids will ever hear about this movie. Well, I'll obviously tell them about it, but they'll think I'm senile and smell funny. In terms of movie making, it hits a lot of the right beats. I am always thrown out of movies when marketing takes a step front and center. Macy's wins this one. Macy's somehow owns Christmas and this movie really locks it in place. Gimbel's gets to peek its head in, but they are simply painted as exploiting Christmas for their own financial gain. Mr. Macy, of course, would never intentionally do that. I kind of want to punch this story in its holly-jolly face for kowtowing so hard to Macy's, but whatever. The movie works for the most part. Yeah, it's silly and it really overteeters on saccharine, but I think that's allowed at Christmas. (Yet, I refuse to watch Hallmark Christmas movies. Go figure.) It's not rated? If you are looking for the creepy and dirty underbelly to Chinese food, you aren't going to find it here.
DIRECTOR: Ian Cheney My wife looked at me with scorn when I first started watching this doc a while ago. She honestly thought I had nothing better to do with my life. I'll have you know, I'm always stressed out with something, so this watch was a choice. I wanted to watch the living daylights out of this movie and gosh darn it, I did. I watched every single second and was super riveted the entire time. The food doc really grabbed my attention with Jiro Dreams of Sushi and I've been looking for a food doc as interesting. While definitely presented with a different tone than Jiro, The Search for General Tso succeeded in hitting the same pleasure center of my brain. Yes, the movie's mission statement is to determine where the most famous Chinese-American dish came from. For the uninitiated, it is common knowledge that Chinese food in America is nothing like Chinese food in China. So director Ian Cheney starts there, but takes the story way further. The weird part is that I thought I was the only one with the questions about how Chinese restaurants work, so I guess I'm in no way a unique butterfly. But in an age where Wikipedia offers immediate, but cheap relief to all of life's stupid questions, documentaries like The Search for General Tso not only provide answers, but gives those answers a wealth of humanity. Like with many of the documentaries I discuss on this blog, there is a certain degree of disbelief. The movie does actually get pretty dark. Don't worry. The content is in no way R-rated, but it is another examination of how America has failed in its goals of inclusion. The movie never goes as far as to say that the Chinese restaurant business is an immoral giant that deserves a cultural shift, but I still have a modicum of guilt for how the system was formed in the first place. It is one of those institutional issues that has resolved itself to a somewhat healthy place, but was built upon our ignorance and stupidity. Basic preview? Look up the Chinese Exclusion Act. Yup. But this movie is more of a celebration of subculture. It is about China as a whole. It is about immigrants and families and pride. It's not all happy, but the tone of the movie as a whole is a joyful affair. Some of the interviewees are borderline silly. Just listening to the guy who collects menus makes me pinch my sinuses in awkward terror, but I love it. It adds a level of real world sheen to a movie that could be quite alienating by concept. It's hilarious and it will probably be one of the last things I remember about the movie. That guy is goofy, but he's not alone in the sphere of people who is passionate about his little subsection of humanity. It's in these moments that I smile and laugh and tell my friends about the movie at parties. Heck, this movie made me a hit at my in-laws' Christmas party and that's a neat little thing to have in my bag of pop culture tricks. I wholeheartedly recommend this movie. Don't order food until after. Get some friends together, crack open a soda or a beverage of choice and relax. This movie is fun and deep at the same. That's something completely special. (You are free and encouraged to order Chinese food after you are done watching.) Live action apparently means PG. I did cringe having to explain "divorce" to Olivia, but content wise is pretty innocent.
DIRECTOR: John Pasquin Having tiny kids means the snobbiness of this blog is severly limited by the fact that many of the movies I watch are meant for children, yet I feel like I have to critique them like any other movie I watch. On top of that, this movie is also dated by the very concept of 1994. I was 11 when I saw this movie in the theater. I don't think I've really seen it since then. Back in the day, I was a Home Improvement fan, as was most of the country. This movie is cast around Tim Allen, who at one points lends his legendary grunt to "Ho Ho Ho." I honestly could end the review around that concept. It's not a good thing. It's not a bad thing. It's a 1994 thing. I think the next movie I'm reviewing is A Miracle on 34th Street and both movies really are based around the same moral: everyone needs to believe in Santa Claus. I love this plot. Again, I'm a sucker for Christmas and I get really emotional really easily with these movies. I don't know if The Santa Clause really knocks it out the part with the emotional hostage taking that the rest of this genre does, but my kids curled up with me watching this, so it really did its job. We often talk about expectations either being met or being defied, and The Santa Clause is a movie about meeting the expectations of the genre. This is a family movie that is aimed for kids. In the '90s, family movies really just started with the experimentation that some of the humor should be aimed at adults. There are plenty of jokes aimed at the adults, but a lot of them fall flat. But Comet farting? Drove my kids bananas. That stuff is timeless, so I can't really critique the movie too hard. It's odd watching this movie from the parents' perspectives. Clearly, the antagonists are Charlie's mother and stepfather. But I couldn't help but identify with them. Scott's behavior is wildly erratic. There is nothing in the Santa Claus mythology to account for his behavior or rapid deterioration. Then Charlie is kidnapped? Honest to Pete, this was a horror movie from that perspective. Again, I often have to tell my brain to shut off when I'm watching a movie with the kids, but it did bug me how destroyed Judge Reinhold would have been during this movie. We're meant to hate him, but he's really just a guy who is trying to do the best he can from a medical perspective. But he wears goofy sweaters, so we're allowed to hate him. The '90s were a mad scientist's playground when it came to CGI. The movie really tries using the dickens out of CGI to establish this as a big budget release. Remember, this is pre Pirates of the Carribean Disney, so their definition of big budget entailed something very different than what we are used to today. The special effects in this movie are quite terrible, but again, my kids didn't mind. How am I allowed to critique anything when it's aimed at a level for kids who don't care. Golly, I just realized a good chunk of my reviews are all going to be forgiven because I have to take into account an audience that's not me. The movie is fun and the concept spawned a franchise. I think I've even seen all three entries in the franchise. Is it hilarious? Not really. Kinda funny, sure. Does it hold up? A little bit, but again...I was eleven when it came out and I am now 33. But I loved that my two-year-old son told my wife all about the movie and we had a movie night in. He loved it and it kind of locked in the reality of Santa into his mind. I think it may have also cemented Santa for my four year old skeptic, so that's always a perk. I swear, nothing is "G". If It's a Wonderful Life can't earn a "G", I don't know what will. I guess the dude is suicidal. PG is still pretty good.
DIRECTOR: Frank Capra This is one of my favorite movies. I've seen it dozens of times. This might have been the test for how much I like this movie because my two-year-old son was jumping on my head for the majority of the tearful ending. It's really hard to see "No man is a failure who has friends" when my son was stomping my skull into the rug. Sorry about the spoiler. You should know this movie at this point and it should be beyond spoiling. I don't know what it is about Christmas movies that make me emotionally vulnerable. I preach vulnerability all day long in my classroom, but overall I'm a pretty cynical guy. I groan at the very notion of a Hallmark Channel, but Christmas is somewhat different. (I'm not cowtowing to Hallmark Channel's Christmas lineup. I will still groan at that. Sorry, the in-laws.) I mentioned that Shane Black always sets his movies at Christmas because the emotional stakes are higher and I kind of get that. As much as It's a Wonderful Life is the epitome of the Christmas movie, the movie really just kind of ends at Christmas. Again, as Black said, it's to raise the stakes of the whole affiar. There's no Santa in this movie. There is no recollection of the Nativity scene. It just happens to be set at Christmas because it makes everything all that much more important. (What I'm really saying is that Die Hard owes a lot to It's a Wonderful Life for establishing what makes a Christmas movie.) This is George Bailey's life and the premise that we all associate with It's a Wonderful Life is really almost a secondary thought. We have seen all the knockoffs of this plot. Every TV show that has an even mild science-fiction or fantasy element has done the story about "What if you had never been born?" storyline and we can thank Capra for it. But the reason that the original works so much better than the many followers that went beyond is the fact the story is about George Bailey as a whole human being. He is a good man in a bad situation. He is the everyman who always chooses the right and still gets punished for his good will. As a devout Catholic, I wish I was more motivated to lead the lives of the saints. As a film snob, I often look to George Bailey because he seems more tangible. That's a weirdly dark confession. Capra and Steward craft George Bailey in to a character who is not good for simply goodness sake, but because he genuinely deals with real temptations and is not the constant martyr. He has moments of happiness and moments of sadness. He is always so close to his dream and it is always taken away from him. In a bizarre way, Capra teases the audience with the goal. Placing George Bailey's story in a typical plot structure, his goal is to explore the world and to become an architect. He deserves this more than any character that I can think of because the goals are realistic and he is a good human being with a sense of responsibility. While some could see that the message could really be a tale of how one should settle rather than pursuing dreams, I think that cheapens the whole affair. George Bailey, rather than finding temporary happiness with the goals of a 13-year-old boy ("Hot dog!"), he finds long term happiness with the raising of a family and the people around him. Yeah, it's settling, but it is settling for a truer happiness than he probably would have received exploring the world. The message is also about the definition of greatness. Most kids are told "You could be the president", which in my more cynical views after the recent election, I realize isn't true. But that is the definition of greatness that most Americans are fed. I wonder if Capra's viewers as an immigrant reflect on this extreme view because he explains the greatness that comes from humility and service. Capra is either the greatest emotional manipulator ever or he's a man that really believes the themes he explores in his works. This is the ideal that we see in both Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Meet John Doe. It comes from the greatness of people not viewing themselves as the final goal, but the community around them. Bailey is the self-sacrificing hero and he is rightly mad about it. But it is not only his character arc that changes, but those of the foils around him. Looking at the run on the bank, we see the worst that the depression had to offer. People looking out for their own self-interests. There's the guy who wants his $242.00 and no less and Bailey changes this man by the end. We have to assume that his contributions are not only saving George and his freedom, but he is also redeeming the sin on his soul. George Bailey is saved by Clarence and the town of Bedford Falls is saved by George Bailey. For a cynic, I have to say that this movie is a pretty solid moral compass. |
Film is great. It can challenge us. It can entertain us. It can puzzle us. It can awaken us.
AuthorMr. H has watched an upsetting amount of movies. They bring him a level of joy that few things have achieved. Archives
April 2024
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