REVIEW: Moonrise Kingdom

Moonrise Kingdom (2012): Dir. Wes Anderson. Written by: Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola. Starring: Kara Hayward, Jared Gilman, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman and Bob Balaban. Rated PG-13 (Nothing you didn't know about when you were a kid). Running time: 94 minutes.

4 stars (out of four)

Wes Anderson seems to have learned a few things from his previous movie, the stop-motion animation Fantastic Mr. Fox. In the past, some of his films have run dangerously close to being too Wes Anderson – too quirky-cute, too self-consciously hip – and when that happens, his characters feel less like people than they do the tongue-in-cheek creations of a clever filmmaker. The solution to that problem was not, as it turns out, reeling it in or toning down his style, but going all the way with it. Animation offered him a newfound freedom that allowed him to be unapologetically Wes Anderson and the result was one of his best movies.

Moonrise Kingdom, his seventh feature overall, is not animated but it feels like it is. The camera pans from side to side as though Mr. Anderson were shooting on a two-dimensional backdrop. His shots are filled with embellishing details and visual gags, and his characters – a colorful and endearing group of caricatures – bound about these finely detailed sets with a ceaseless energy not often found in live-action people.

The story concerns two children who, on the cusp of adolescence and feeling the potent sting of young love, decide to run off together one summer in 1965. They live on a sparsely populated island in New England where the residents receive their mail by plane and rely on a ferry that runs twice daily for transportation to the mainland.

Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) is plagued with a restless angst she will probably grow out of one day but for the time being her parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) and her three younger brothers must deal with. She has been labeled “emotionally disturbed” by some out-of-touch physician, a diagnosis that is supposed to help her family cope with her issues and properly treat them, but only compounds her isolation and loneliness.

So she reaches out to Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman), a fellow outsider, and the two form an intimate friendship. Sam, an orphan who has been passed around foster families his whole life, is a Khaki Scout at Camp Ivanhoe, a summer camp for boys on the island run by Scout Master Randy Ward (a hilarious Edward Norton). Scout Master Ward is a boy at heart with a deeply held devotion to the Khaki Scout program. When his campers ask what his real job is, he replies that he is a math teacher. No, wait. He changes his answer. His real job is being Scout Master. He’s a math teacher on the side.

We learn through flashbacks how Suzy and Sam met the previous summer and spent the proceeding year as pen pals, keeping one another company through letters and confiding in each other the difficult emotions they can only just barely express in words. They agree they are the only ones who truly understand each other and must run away together.

Naturally, this causes some distress for the adults. Not just Suzy’s parents and the Scout Master but also Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), the lone police officer on the island. He sets out to find the kids with the help of Scout Master Ward’s Khaki Scouts, a motley crew who don’t see the point in bringing Sam back anyway because they hated his guts and are all the happier with him gone.

Moonrise Kingdom is a sweet and very funny movie. Wes Anderson and co-writer Roman Coppola write some of their best one-liners and they revel in the idiosyncrasies of their characters. Mr. Anderson has assembled a sprightly cast that is light on their feet and they slip easily into their roles. They help to take what are essentially cartoon characters and give them depth. We get a few brief glimpses into the troubled marriage between Mr. Bishop, a wonderful new variant on Bill Murray’s sad sack persona, and Mrs. Bishop, a chipper but lonely woman who finds companionship in the dopey Captain Sharp.

Bob Balaban has an almost ethereal presence in the film as the island’s resident meteorologist, drifting in and out to narrate portions of the story. Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman and Harvey Keitel also appear in some fine bit parts, getting a chance for some comedic riffing alongside the main cast.

This story does not however belong to the adults, though their myriad issues and quirks could provide Mr. Anderson with material for a dozen more films. Moonrise Kingdom is about the kids and its young stars are wonderful. Suzy and Sam are confronting miniature-sized versions of the problems their grown-up counterparts face and Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman convey this with a subtlety that suggests much life experience.

I hesitate to call the film great and suspect it could fade away with time. It is a breezy film and I can’t quite say how much of it will leave an impression on repeat viewings. Still, the first time around, Moonrise Kingdom wraps you up its dizzy charm and smoothes over its own imperfections. The more time that passes after watching it, the more I think of reasons why this might not be one of Wes Anderson’s best. But his movies have always been more about feeling than thinking and the tone of Moonrise Kingdom is pitch perfect.

The movie is so heartbreakingly small it feels as though you could put it in your pocket. The tone is light and would have you believe that all of this is trivial. But it’s not. At least it’s not to these characters. And that’s something Mr. Anderson misses in some of his films. Occasionally he gets so caught up in the rhythms of his dialogue and the beats of his scenes that he neglects to give his characters real heart. Moonrise Kingdom somehow avoids this. There are moments here of startling honesty that resonate deeply, all the more so because they come by surprise in the midst of this airy comedy.

The soundtrack has its share of typical Wes Anderson tunes – dusty pop songs that capture emotions in flux – but the film’s real treasure is Alexandre Desplat’s score. Mr. Desplat keeps things pitched at “delicate whimsy” for most of the film but he also has a way of making grand the quiet emotions of children.

From our comfortable adult vantage points, we can see these kids’ adventure is minor, even inconsequential. From inside the bubble of childhood (and segregated geographically on their little island), however, it is as huge as life. They are running away from home, eloping in the name of true love and leaving behind their childhoods, ready (they believe) to take on whatever the future holds. The film never condescends to its characters or reveals their naiveté. That much, Wes Anderson assumes we in the audience will supply. Moonrise Kingdom is instead a movie you can escape into; watching it, you can perhaps even recapture a glimpse of what it felt like to run barefoot through the dirt, convinced the world is as big as you are.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/28/12

REVIEW: Battleship

Battleship (2012): Dir. Peter Berg. Written by: Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber. Based on the game "Battleship" by Hasbro. Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgård, Rihanna, Brooklyn Decker, Gregory D. Gadson and Hamish Linklater. Rated PG-13 (Aliens come down to Earth and make a lot of noise). Running time: 131 minutes.

0 stars (out of four)

After seeing Battleship, I left the theater shell-shocked and in that depressed malaise that only the very worst movies can bring out in me. This is the sort of movie that makes you question the way you live your life. Maybe I should donate more to charity? I should really call my parents more often. If the Mayans are right and the end of the world is coming this year, you only have a limited number of hours left. How do you accept the fact that more than two of those were just spent on Battleship? This is a question I do not have the answer to, as I am still grappling with it myself.

Battleship takes its name from the board game. As far as its entertainment value goes, the experience of watching the movie is roughly equivalent to the clean-up process of pulling out those little plastic pegs that always hurt your fingertips.

The opening text informs us that NASA has discovered a distant planet in the so-called Goldilocks Zone (a real term astronomers use). The planet’s orbit is just the right distance from its sun – not too hot, not too cold – and scientists suspect it may support life. So they launch a massive satellite that will transmit a message across untold light years in the hopes that contact will be made.

Well, that was a bad idea. Contact is made but it is they who contact us and their preferred method of communication is through obliterating explosions. Five mysterious objects come hurtling through our atmosphere and crash in the Pacific Ocean. There they float like colossal buoys in the water; they are ships, of course.

Lucky for us, there is an international naval exercise going on nearby. The American and Japanese navies are engaged in some friendly game that is never properly explained. At any rate, they are conveniently present to defend Earth, puny though their weapons may seem compared to those of the aliens.

For Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch), this means a chance at redemption. He is a sloppy, irresponsible sailor and an embarrassment to his older brother (Alexander Skarsgård). After a fistfight with a fellow officer, Hopper’s naval career is at risk, which is particularly awkward since the man he answers to is Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson), the father of his girlfriend (Brooklyn Decker). Hopper was just about to ask the Admiral if he could have his daughter’s hand in marriage when his immature outburst causes the good Admiral to question the young man’s character. If only Hopper could prevent an alien invasion and prove his future father-in-law wrong…

There are other humans in the movie too. Mick (Gregory D. Gadson) is a hulking brute who lost his legs in battle and is just learning to use his new prosthetic limbs. Hamish Linklater plays Cal, the requisite brainy tech guy who spouts computer jargon at all the worst times. And in her debut film role, Rihanna (rather ridiculously cast a petty officer) takes a crack at acting and, by my count, she says all of her lines correctly.

But the Earthlings in Battleship are so hopelessly, pathetically ill-matched against the aliens’ weaponry, rooting for them seems beside the point. Once you get a good look at the alien ships (and director Peter Berg makes sure there are plenty of sudden, dramatic zoom-outs to emphasize their size), our flimsy heroes look especially small.

This is, after all, a summer special effects extravaganza and plausible characters are pretty far down on the list of priorities for this kind of movie. Unfortunately, the action sequences in Battleship feel like second-rate knock-offs of scenes from Michael Bay’s Transformers films and – if this is possible – they are even less coherent. I feel for all those poor computer animators whose hard work was haphazardly tossed together in this confused jumble. (Three different editors are credited on this film.)

Michael Bay at least has style and a vision; Battleship only has a budget it needs to spend. And watching the filmmakers spend that budget seems to be at least part of the appeal of movies like this. Battleship recklessly wastes so much money – on indistinguishable set pieces that just get demolished anyways, on large crowds of extras that appear onscreen for three seconds – I wonder if it might not have been more fun to have a pop-up ticker in the corner of the screen tallying the film’s expenses (more than $200 million).

Battleship goes on and on for a punishingly long 131 minutes, dragging its heels as though it were stalling for time. Peter Berg’s direction is utterly inert and the script by Jon and Erich Hoeber is almost shockingly lazy. All the while, Steve Jablonsky’s musical score beats you over the head, trying to convince you that you are watching something interesting and exciting. In the end though, Battleship turns out to be one big bellyflop.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/22/12

REVIEW: The Dictator

The Dictator (2012): Dir. Larry Charles. Written by: Sacha Baron Cohen, Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer. Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anna Faris, Ben Kingsley and Jason Mantzoukas. Rated R (Cursing, racial slurs, masturbation, nudity, decapitation. All in good fun.) Running time: 83 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

General Admiral Hafez Aladeen, the autocrat at the center of Sacha Baron Cohen’s new satire The Dictator, is a type of ruler in increasingly short supply of late. His idols, and perhaps former poker buddies, include Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and, of course, Kim Jong-il, to whom this film is lovingly dedicated. These are men who led grand lives of opulence, occasionally stepping out onto the balconies of their shimmering gold palaces to address the famished, oppressed people of their nation and reassure them that the country is in good hands. When Aladeen delivers one such speech to announce that development of weapons-grade uranium is almost complete (to be used for medical purposes, naturally), he can barely keep a straight face.

The same would not be said of Sacha Baron Cohen, the prankster who gave us Brüno, Borat and Da Ali G Show, and master of keeping a straight face. His Aladeen is a ravenous egomaniac whose hatred of the West is matched only by his antisemitism, yet – and this is one of the great pleasures of Mr. Baron Cohen’s comedies – no matter how despicable the character, we can’t help but wind up rooting for him. When Aladeen’s dictatorship faces the threat of becoming a democracy, I’ll be damned if I didn’t find myself hoping he makes it to the UN building in time to declare continued tyranny over his country.

That country is the fictional Wadiya, which we briefly see on a map, its borders cleverly drawn in along the North African coast. The threat of democracy comes from his top political advisor and uncle Tamir (Ben Kingsley, believe it or not, in a fine straight man performance). Aladeen unwittingly finds himself in that capitalist hellhole, the United States, forced to wander the streets of New York as an average American.

How and why this happens I will not say – the other great pleasure of this movie is the breakneck speed at which it races through a dozen or more crazy ideas and twists – except that he meets a young woman from Brooklyn, Zoey (a very funny Anna Faris), who agrees to take him in. Zoey is a Vegan and a feminist who runs an organic grocery store and is on hand to politely correct Aladeen’s political incorrectness.

You might say Sacha Baron Cohen walks a fine line with his movies but the more accurate description would be that he stomps all over that line until it is no longer visible or relevant. He blends smart commentary with crude shock gags and the style works for him. His satire rarely digs deeper than a few barbed one-liners, which may be a wise move. The hypocrisy of dictators is an easy target and he knows it, so he uses his tougher, political jabs sparingly. The remainder of The Dictator is spent on broader, mostly raunchy comedy.

In this area, Mr. Baron Cohen and his creative team are old hands. Director Larry Charles, who helmed Brüno and Borat, is a Seinfeld alum, and co-writers Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer are all writers or producers for Curb Your Enthusiasm, among other TV shows. They ensure that The Dictator has a satisfying laugh quotient: there are a few belly laughs, at least two outrageous gross-out gags, and plenty of chuckles and grins scattered throughout. It helps too to have cameos from John C. Reilly, Chris Parnell, Fred Armisen and many other comedians. Jason Mantzoukas, as Aladeen's weapons developer, has some funny scenes too opposite Sacha Baron Cohen.

The movie is nice and short, leaving little room to stall or get dull. One gets the impression Mr. Baron Cohen and Mr. Charles made a three-hour movie and cut it down to the best possible 83 minutes (credit should also be given here to editors Greg Hayden and Eric Kissack). No doubt there will be some good deleted scenes on the DVD.

For his next movie, I might like to see Sacha Baron Cohen try something new. If The Dictator does break away from the mockumentary format of Brüno and Borat, it is still made from the same DNA as those films. For now, however, this movie allows him to continue to do what he does so well: dig his teeth into a hot button topic with reckless abandon and let loose a lovably horrible (or is horribly lovable?) character to wreak havoc on our collective sense of decency. And that is a very good thing.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/21/12

REVIEW: Dark Shadows

Dark Shadows (2012): Dir. Tim Burton. Written by: Seth Grahame-Smith. Story by John August and Seth Grahame-Smith, based on the TV show Dark Shadows by Dan Curtis. Starring: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, Chloë Grace Moretz and Bella Heathcote. Rated PG-13 (Plenty of blood-sucking and some suggestive but non-graphic sex). Running time: 113 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

At this point, one may safely assume a new Tim Burton movie will not break new ground. He has found he can work comfortably in his pop-goth niche producing mixed results and he rarely has much interest in expanding his aesthetic or exploring outside the box. What he does instead is find new ways to play inside that box, or coffin, as the case almost always is.

This time he revives the late-1960s vampire soap opera Dark Shadows (unseen by me) for a tongue-in-cheek broad comedy. Mr. Burton’s pal Johnny Depp plays Barnabas Collins, the heir to a wealthy fish-packaging family who is cursed by the family’s young maid, Angelique (Eva Green), when he does not reciprocate her love. She is a witch, apparently, and transforms Barnabas into a vampire. She then turns the townspeople against him (torches, pitchforks and all) and they bury him alive.

There he rests until 1972 when construction on a new McDonalds unearths his coffin. To the old Collins manor he goes, to see what living relatives he may have who are willing to help him exact revenge on Angelique. The current residents of the Collins manor include Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer), her daughter Carolyn (Chloë Grace Moretz), her brother Roger (Jonny Lee Miller) and his son David (Gulliver McGrath). David claims to be able to communicate with ghosts (in particular his deceased mother), an oddity the family treats by hiring a boozing, live-in doctor (Helena Bonham Carter) to hang around the house and watch him.

Also employed at the manor are a drunken groundskeeper (Jackie Earle Haley) and Victoria (Bella Heathcote), a young woman who has just arrived from New York and bears a striking (perhaps even mystical) resemblance to Barnabas’s dead lover. (Did I forget to mention Barnabas’s lover was killed by Angelique back in the day?)

Not that any of this matters much. The lengthy introduction turns out to just be a set-up for gags involving Barnabas wandering around and marveling at modern innovations such as automobiles and ice cream. The jokes in these scenes are tired and predictable but, thanks to Mr. Depp’s unflagging enthusiasm, made me chuckle about half the time.

At any rate, the comedy is more interesting than the undead love triangle that is supposedly at the center of this dramatically limp script by Seth Grahame-Smith and John August. The movie fails to convince us its characters are worth even paying attention to, much less emotionally investing in their fates. A number of scenes drift past without leaving any impression.

Playing eighteenth-century vampire-types must be a walk in the park for Johnny Depp by now but he finds ways to have fun with the part. Bella Heathcote’s gaunt, bug-eyed face makes her a classic Burton babe and she plays the character dull and submissive, which is how Mr. Burton typically portrays innocent and virginal young women. Michelle Pfeiffer and Helena Bonham Carter are amusing in underdeveloped bit parts and Jackie Earle Haley, in a rare comedic turn, seems to be enjoying himself. The weak link here is Chloë Grace Moretz, usually a firecracker, who here stomps around in one-note teen angst.

In one of the movie’s last scenes, a character reveals a major secret about herself but kindly asks everyone in the room to not make too big a deal out of it. Fair enough. Dark Shadows is not a movie that warrants a big response. It disappears from the mind as quickly as an apparition.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/13/12

REVIEW: The Avengers

The Avengers (2012): Written and directed by Joss Whedon. Story by: Zak Penn and Joss Whedon. Based on The Avengers comic books by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, and Samuel L. Jackson. Rated PG-13 (Crash, bang, boom). Running time: 143 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

In The Avengers, we finally learn what happens when Thor’s mighty hammer comes crashing down on the impenetrable shield of Captain America. (Spoiler alert!) There is an explosion.

This is just one of many spectacles The Avengers offers, including an aircraft carrier soaring into the sky, a massive metal space worm demolishing Manhattan and the heaving bosom of Scarlett Johansson. If the idea of seeing Iron Man, The Hulk, Thor and Captain America sharing the screen excites you beyond belief, then The Avengers is not just the best movie of the summer, or even the year; it is the greatest movie ever made.

Earth is once again in trouble and the head of the top-secret organization S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), at last has an opportunity to assemble the team of superheroes he has been recruiting over the course of five movies. There is the tech-savvy playboy Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.); Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), the scientist who turns into the not-so-jolly green giant The Hulk when enraged; the extraterrestrial Norse god Thor (Chris Hemsworth); and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), the cryogenically preserved WWII patriot Captain America.

Not that their personalities matter much in this film; the heroes only appear in diluted form in The Avengers. After all, with so many exciting things happening here, can you blame the film for skimping on something as inconsequential as characters? Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the greasy-haired estranged brother of Thor, has procured a magical blue cube that he will use to open a portal to a distant corner of the universe where a few of his alien cronies wait. He plans to enlist their help to decimate, and presumably take over, our planet.

As you can imagine, The Avengers will need all the help they can get, so Nick Fury has signed up a few more recruits for the forces of good. Jeremy Renner plays Hawkeye, an assassin whose marksmanship with a bow and arrow gives Katniss Everdeen a run for her money. Another invaluable member of the team is the sultry Russian agent, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson). Ms. Johansson, who excels at playing coy and aloof, need not worry here about her limited range as an actress. As it turns out, her body excels at wearing leather, and it is this skill that is called upon in The Avengers.

The clash of these titans of comic book lore is presented in several plodding action sequences, including an especially mechanical one on the aforementioned aircraft carrier-turned-aircraft. Another takes place on the streets of Manhattan, where product placement conveniently doubles as the mise en scène of billboards and taxicab ads. Just as Thor did, The Avengers gives itself up to corporate uncreativity; it is loud, flashy and fleetingly entertaining but ultimately hollow and pointless. The special effects are absolutely spectacular and utterly soulless.

The film was written and directed by Joss Whedon, who is considered a demigod in some nerd circles (with all due respect to Thor and his Asgardian brethren). Those expecting something witty or cheeky, however, such as Mr. Whedon’s recent horror movie mash-up The Cabin in the Woods, will be disappointed. Any semblance of cleverness in The Avengers is limited to what material Mr. Whedon supplies Robert Downey Jr., who struts around in a Black Sabbath tee shirt, spitting out snarky comments and poking fun at the other heroes. These spare kidding moments are all but drowned out by the deafening assault of the film’s pursuit of blockbuster colossality. Even Samuel L. Jackson’s usual verve feels muted by his busy surroundings.

What a shame, since many of the movie’s jokes are genuinely funny. The very concept of this movie is totally absurd, so why not embrace that silliness and allow the humor to carry over into more than a handful of one-liners?

The movie is also surprisingly boring at times. The first third, which is bogged down with an excess of incomprehensible exposition, is particularly dull. We are expected to wait patiently though, because a lot of cool stuff will surely follow all this tedious jabbering. It must be said though that Mr. Whedon does handle some of this cool stuff pretty well. When the camera whizzes around the streets of New York in a computer-animated frenzy, capturing all our heroes in a single, unbroken shot, it is hard not to momentarily get caught up in the movie’s love of awesomeness for the sake of awesomeness.

Joss Whedon does not include anything unexpected in The Avengers but, to make up for that, he includes a wealth of things we fully expect, and even demand, to see: superheroes smashing superheroes, superheroes smashing supervillains, monologues delivered in monotone, Earth in peril and (spoiler alert!) Earth saved. To try to do anything else would be to risk the film’s status as the greatest ever made.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/7/12

Summer Movie Survival Guide

The calendar on the wall says summer isn’t until June 20 but those who follow the Movie Calendar know summer starts this Friday with the release of The Avengers. From then until Labor Day, Hollywood will be in full-on blockbuster mode, for better or worse, and judging by the forecast, we’re in for a doozy.

Three movies in particular stand out to me. I hesitate to call them new lows because they very well may be good (and I genuinely hope they are), so let’s just call them firsts.

The aforementioned The Avengers is the first movie that audiences have already made a down payment on. If you’ve seen both Iron Man films, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger and stuck around for all the Samuel L. Jackson cameos, you’re practically contractually obligated to be excited for this movie. Marvel’s mega tie-in has proven to be a major success from a business perspective, a debatable success from a creative perspective and a little wearying from this audience member’s perspective. You’re not going to be able to escape this one so you might as well see it. At least that’s the way the geniuses at Marvel’s marketing department seem to be pitching it.

On May 18 we have Battleship, based on the classic game of naval strategy from Milton Bradley. (Go ahead and read that sentence again if you don’t believe it.) The film, which looks as though it will feature Liam Neeson fighting off a water-based Transformers invasion (not an inherently bad idea), will also be the film debut of Rihanna (far from an inherently good idea). Disappointingly, she did not contribute a theme song to the film. (Am I the only one who feels “Baby, sink my battleship” would have made for a classic Rihannian innuendo?) This is the first movie based on a plotless board game and will paradoxically be cashing in on your recognition of the brand name while also trying to convince you that adapting the game to the screen is not a very, very stupid idea.

Then there’s The Amazing Spider-Man on July 3, not really a first as much as it is a new record. Only five summers after the disappointing Spider-Man 3, we’re to be treated to a new take on the photographer-turned-arachnid’s origins. Unnecessary? Of course. Excessive? Only if you see it in 3D! But, boy, that Emma Stone sure is cute. Who wants to bet whether or not Sam Jackson will mind his own business during the end credits of this one?

That Hollywood can’t come up with any original ideas has long been taken to be self-evident but the 2012 summer release schedule really seems to be pushing it, don’t you think? And I haven’t even mentioned Tim Burton’s recycling of the old TV show Dark Shadows, or Men in Black III, or Disney’s big-budget action treatment of Snow White, or Christopher Nolan’s third Batman movie, or the latest in the Madagascar, Ice Age and Bourne franchises. We even had a sort of preamble this year with the 3D re-release of the ultimate summer blockbuster, Titanic (still great, by the way). How long can this possibly go on for before things get better?

The answer is forever, the December apocalypse notwithstanding. We’re living in the Golden Age of Movie Marketing. Advertisement saturation can ensure that even the worst ideas will yield big profits and movies like Battleship seem to be cruelly testing the limits of marketing’s power this year.

But I’m not being fair to these movies. Summer blockbusters have always been about making money. I’d be kidding myself if I tried to act jaded and claim they’re not what they used to be. And yet, are they?

If all goes well, summer movies are a win-win for everyone. Audiences love watching movie stars share the screen with special effects. Studio executives and filmmakers love that we love said stars and effects, and will spend our money to see them. And movie theater owners are happy to know that paying the air conditioning bill is still worthwhile.

What happens though when one of those groups is no longer as satisfied as the rest? What happens when quality stops being relevant and the movies start to suck? Apparently we still see them. Studios know we want big, loud, dumb (BLD) summer movies and will see them every summer even when the choices are slim pickings.

Is there nothing we can do about this? Are we doomed to obediently buy a ticket to every movie that studios want us to? Must we sit through endless hours of mediocrity or worse until we can no longer distinguish the good from the merely loud? Can’t we still enjoy ourselves at the movies this summer without succumbing to the conglomerate will of the powers that be? Or must we become hardened cynics who grumble until the end of days through a mouthful of popcorn about the way the movies used to be? Isn’t there another way?

Rest easy. There is.

The current state of the summer blockbuster has driven me (and I imagine many others) to a breaking point. I love BLD summer movies but it’s hard not to become disenchanted in times like this. So here are the questions I will be asking in order to stay sane this summer even as the hammer of Thor attempts to bash us all into passive submission:

1) Does this film care if I like it, or is it just trying to nab my cash on a weekend between superhero movies?

2) It doesn’t matter if a movie didn’t need to happen. Good movies can arise from bad ideas. Stranger things have happened. Given the circumstances, did the filmmakers shoot a decent movie, or was the bottom line more important?

3) Was anyone not invited to be in The Expendables 2? (Nick Fury, if nothing else, is a more selective recruiter.)

Here’s hoping summer 2012 is a good one for the movies. There are even alternative options to the above, including a handful of original concepts that seem promising. And if all else fails, you can always duck into an art house playing the new Wes Anderson movie. At least, that’s my Plan C.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/2/12

REVIEW: The Five-Year Engagement

The Five-Year Engagement (2012): Dir. Nicholas Stoller. Written by: Jason Segal and Nicholas Stoller. Starring: Jason Segal, Emily Blunt, Chris Pratt and Alison Brie. Rated R (Non-graphic sex and some cursing). Running time: 124 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

Today’s young people have difficulty settling down, or at least the two young people in The Five-Year Engagement do. Tom (Jason Segal) and Violet (Emily Blunt) are madly in love with each other, so why the delay? Why not just tie the knot already? The popular notion seems to be that their generation wants everything to be just right. They want to make sure their mate is really The One, and if so, they want the absolute best for their special, unique love.

Older generations, such as the parents and grandparents of Tom and Violet, can’t understand this. They got hitched young, made the best of it and were happy enough. Where’s the romance in waiting? But there is romance in Tom and Violet’s relationship. Their song, for example, is Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love,” about as close as there is to a definitive romantic soundtrack.

Tom is a typical Jason Segal character – kind, sensitive, a little oafish – and Violet is his admiring British companion, a real sweetheart who seeks a career in academia. They still flirt, joke and have good sex but life keeps getting in the way of their actual wedding. There is always some reason or another to extend their engagement and postpone the ceremony.

The first of these postponements results from an irresistible career opportunity for Violet. She has been accepted to a two-year research program for psychology but the job is in Michigan, quite a ways away from their home in San Francisco. No worries, says Tom. They can put off the wedding for a couple of years and get married when they come back to the Bay Area.

But this means Tom has to set aside his culinary career – he is a sous-chef for a swanky restaurant – and settle for making fat sandwiches for college students in Michigan. He doesn’t mind though, really, he swears. He’s willing to compromise for the love of his life. Of course, as the reality of two years settles in, Tom becomes less and less patient.

Meanwhile, Tom’s future best man (a wonderfully doofy Chris Pratt) and Violet’s sister (Alison Brie) hook up and before they know it, they’re on the married-with-children fast track. They offer Tom and Violet a constant reminder of the still-engaged couple’s lack of progress down the same path.

The Five-Year Engagement has a nice heart but is a bit long and overstuffed with side characters, which is to say it is a standard Judd Apatow-produced film. In addition to the in-laws there are friends, co-workers, bosses and acquaintances, all played by talented comedic actors and Apatow regulars. The movie has funny moments but the best of these have an off-the-cuff, ad-libbed feel, a testament to the strength of its likable cast. The more screwball shtick – including an incident with a crossbow and another involving the lewd use of deli meats – is less successful and mostly passes by without leaving much of an impression.

But jokes are only part of a romantic-comedy and the majority of The Five-Year Engagement focuses on the ups and downs of Tom and Violet’s relationship. Unfortunately, the script, written by Jason Segal and director Nicholas Stoller, who previously collaborated on the very funny Forgetting Sarah Marshall and last year’s charming revamp of The Muppets, never digs deeper than sitcom-level insights. Tom and Violet have a lot of long, serious talks about the state of their relationship and plodding through these scenes with Mr. Segal and Mrs. Blunt sometimes gives the viewer the uncanny feeling of actually being a part of one of these insufferable conversations.

As it turns out, Tom and Violet learn that their love is not necessarily as special or unique as they may have once thought. Many people have gotten married before them and many more will get married after them. The Five-Year Engagement effectively illustrates this revelation by not being an especially unique or memorable romantic-comedy. There are awkward wedding reception toasts, infidelities, break-ups and make-ups, some Apple product placement and a few fine uses of Van Morrison’s music. Assuming you follow the movie’s moral about settling for the less-than-spectacular, you should be happy enough with this movie.

- Steve Avigliano, 4/29/12

REVIEW: The Cabin in the Woods

The Cabin in the Woods (2012): Dir. Drew Goddard. Written by Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon. Starring: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford. Rated R (Blood and breasts). Running time: 95 minutes.

2 ½ stars (out of four)

Two jocks, a floozy, a stoner and a naive sweetheart walk into a cabin in the woods. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

But maybe you haven’t. The Cabin in the Woods is a horror film that, as its title suggests, takes on one of the genre’s most elemental formulas. Horny teenagers and deranged slashers have been sharing campgrounds for decades now but co-writers Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard (who also directed the film) are interested in delivering more than your standard bloody, wooded excursion. They seek to turn a familiar premise – and, with it, just about every other horror movie convention – on its head and offer up a complete genre deconstruction.

A horror movie’s success often hinges on its ability to surprise. Audiences demand a sudden scare, an unexpected twist or, sometimes, considering how formulaic these movies tend to be, the surprise may be as slight as the order in which the characters are killed.

The Cabin in the Woods certainly has its share of surprises. The movie toys with our expectations and subverts them, letting us think we know where it is going, only to yank the rug out from under its own clichés. This makes for plenty of unexpected moments but also means the movie too often feels like an exercise in meta cleverness.

Among the doomed kids is David (Chris Hemsworth), a cocky football player who gets the cabin on loan from his cousin. Joining him for the weekend are his girlfriend Jules (Anna Hutchison), her best friend Dana (Kristen Connolly), his teammate Holden (Jesse Williams) and their pothead pal Marty (Fran Kranz). Each fits a familiar slasher movie archetype, though the movie hints there may be more to their two-dimensional personalities than we first expect.

Before we even meet any of the vacationing teens, we are introduced to two curiously cavalier lab technicians, Richard (the always wonderful Richard Jenkins) and Steve (Bradley Whitford). They are employees in an sleek, underground facility that has remote access via video surveillance and more to the cabin. Of their role in what happens next, I will say no more except that they are the catalysts of a series of twists that continue to escalate through the film’s finale.

Perhaps because the scenes with the two lab techs break fresh, new territory, they are by far more interesting than what is going on in the cabin. (The witty repartee between Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Whitford helps too.) The cabin scenes are not without their moments but it’s hard to get too attached to, or root for, characters that are only stand-ins for self-referential commentary. Part of what makes trashy horror movies fun is the way they encourage us to cheer on some characters and wish death for others. The Cabin in the Woods is too self-aware for that. As soon as audience sympathies begin to form for a character, attention is called to that very sympathy, which is of course one of the ways Mr. Whedon and Mr. Goddard play with the formula, but it also takes the wind out of a few scenes. The movie wants to keep us at a distance.

In its final third, The Cabin in the Woods becomes an all-out funhouse of a movie and there is an inspired sequence that is the ultimate horror movie mash-up. It is a scene horror fans never knew they wanted but, now that it exists, is a must-see if only for its sheer audacity.

By the end, The Cabin in the Woods gives us plenty to smile at but no real scares or jolts. That was never its intention though. The movie is a smart critique of horror films without actually being an entry in the genre, a choice of approach that is as novel as it is limiting.

- Steve Avigliano, 4/24/12

REVIEW: The Three Stooges

The Three Stooges (2012): Dir. Peter and Bobby Farrelly. Written by: Mike Cerrone and the Farrelly brothers. Starring: Chris Diamantopoulos, Sean Hayes, Will Sasso, Jane Lynch, Larry David and Sofia Vergara. Rated PG (Nonstop comic violence, all in good fun). Running time: 92 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

Very few comedies run through as much goofiness as cheerfully and with such lickity-split pacing as The Three Stooges, a revival of and loving tribute to those kings of slapstick. Directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly and written by the Farrellys and Mike Cerrone, The Three Stooges understands there is a certain unbridled comic joy that occurs when some dunce hatches an idiotic idea and his pals agree without hesitation to help him carry it out.

The Farrelly brothers are certainly not newcomers to this approach. Their debut, Dumb and Dumber, a film I treasure dearly, more or less features the same shtick as this one with one less stooge. That was nearly twenty years ago and now they take on the improbable task of revitalizing the antics of Larry, Curly and Moe for an audience that might not share their nostalgia for the old skits.

The Stooges were bonking one another over the head as early as the 1930s and though the Farrelleys plant them in the present day for this movie, the Stooges’ comedy has been diligently preserved. Aside from a few predictable jokes about Facebook poking (the Stooges are of course more familiar with eye poking) and an appearance from the Jersey Shore cast, the gags in The Three Stooges are mostly classic slapstick.

The Farrellys execute their craft by simple means – a lot of trick rubber hammers and sound effects – and skillfully choreograph scene after scene of scene of inspired mayhem. The Stooges are a kind of living Rube Goldberg machine; a single push or slap sets off a chain reaction of cartoon violence that continues until one or all three are flat on the ground, nursing their injuries. Every joke is carefully set up and watching the inevitable play out is a lot of fun. When Larry blindly shoots an arrow into the sky, you know it will make a well-timed reappearance by the end of the bit.

Much credit must also be given to Chris Diamantopoulos, Sean Hayes and Will Sasso, who play Moe, Larry and Curly, respectively. They bound around the sets with admirable energy and enthusiasm, grunting and whooping and whining when applicable. Though they pretty much never stop thwacking each other or slinging insults back and forth (these come most often from Moe, the de facto leader of the trio), the Stooges, oddly enough, also have a believable friendship. For all their antagonism, at the end of the day there is no one else they would rather be with. After all, who else would tolerate their company for more than a minute?

Certainly not Sister Mary-Mengele (a gender bending Larry David), a nun at the orphanage the Stooges call home and frequent victim to their sometimes accidental, sometimes intentional anarchy. Also making appearances are Jane Lynch as Mother Superior and, in a villainous turn, Sofia Vergara, whose Betty Boop proportions make her a nice fit for this brand of cartoonish physical comedy. Inexplicably, Jennifer Hudson and Kate Upton also show up as nuns but they don’t get much screen time or many jokes.

There is a plot too which I have neglected to mention that involves the Stooges needing to gather $830,000 to save the orphanage. Though the film follows this narrative throughout, it doesn’t grant it much importance. The movie is divided into three segments – each with their own retro-style title card – that ignore whatever progress the plot might have made in the previous skit and instead simply mark a change in location for the Stooges’ hijinks.

Having no more than the most cursory knowledge of the Three Stooges, I am surprised to say how much I enjoyed this film. The comedy is shamelessly lowbrow but also innocent. All of the Stooges’ friends in this movie are children, which I do not think was ever a detail included in the old skits but feels like the right choice here. The Stooges are very stupid but the Farrellys are smart about being stupid and, I imagine, very happy to be able to honor their heroes with a movie that certainly does the original trio no injustice.

- Steve Avigliano, 4/15/12

Revisiting Star Wars - Final Thoughts

There has always been a tug of war between George Lucas’s vision for the Star Wars movies and fans’ expectations for them. The first Star Wars (only dubbed Episode IV when re-released in 1981) is a lighthearted space opera and its sequel, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, breaks away from that a bit, offering something that transcends the inherent campiness of the first. Episode V is not content to simply give viewers dashing heroes and thrilling escapes (though it has its share of those too). It takes its characters and their fates too seriously for that and instead aims higher. The result is the best film of the series, one that invests audiences deeply in its story.

But maybe this more sophisticated approach was never George Lucas’s intention. What if Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, which trivializes its story with spear-throwing teddy bears – and sloppy filmmaking I might add – falls more in line with his vision for the series?

With Episode I: The Phantom Menace, George Lucas gets a fresh slate, an opportunity to reinvent what it meant for a film to be a Star Wars film. A handful of the series’ salient characters are introduced in it (Obi-Wan, Anakin, Palpatine) but for the most part, the story of Episode I is inessential to the overarching narrative. It’s a gee-whiz adventure that gives Mr. Lucas a chance to play freely in the universe he created.

Cue the outrage. Upon its release in 1999, fans bemoaned the childish approach of Episode I but, compared to Episode VI, I find it to be the more successful film. Episode VI does not fully work because it releases all the tension that was so carefully built up in Episode V. On the other hand, Episode I has no responsibility to uphold a previously established tone or style. As the first film in a trilogy, it can afford to be a little trivial.

George Lucas does deliver what fans want in Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, which comes closer than any other Star Wars movie to the approach of Episode V, telling the story of Anakin’s downfall with all the grandeur fans envisioned it would have. The prequel trilogy ends on an exciting and satisfying note, something Episode VI does not offer. Between Episode I and III is Episode II: Attack of the Clones, the low point of the series, but its failings are a result of issues with structure and exposition, not tone.

The other menace that has plagued the Star Wars films for years is George Lucas’s insistence on tinkering with them. The “Special Editions” of Episodes IV-VI, released in 1997, add a lot of new computer-animated effects among other cuts and reedits. While I’ll always believe that Han shot first, I have no major beef with the Special Editions. I watched the original theatrical versions when revisiting the films for these reviews but for all other intents and purposes I prefer the Special Editions. They’re flashier, crisper and nicely restored for a digital age. They may be unnecessary but these are George Lucas’s films and he may do with them what he wishes.

So where does the series go from here? According to his most recent statements, Mr. Lucas claims there will be no more Star Wars movies but he’s changed his mind before so it’s safe to say we may take his comments with a mountain of salt. My personal suspicion is that Mr. Lucas will use the profits from the 3D re-releases (which will continue annually until Episode VI is re-released in 2017) to finance another trilogy as he did with the Special Editions two years prior to the release of the first prequel. Only time will tell. Maybe there will be a reboot some day with a fresh crop of young actors in the vein of J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek or maybe the world of Star Wars will only live on through novels and animated TV shows.

Watching the Star Wars movies again with an objective and critical eye has given me a new appreciation for them. As a second-generation fan, I hardly had any choice but to love them unconditionally. But sometimes you need to take a step back to remind yourself why you fell in love in the first place, flaws and all.

- Steve Avigliano, 4/9/12