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I, generally, really like Pixar.  But the last two films of theirs I’ve seen lead me to believe that they’re trying to branch out into the Horror genre.  It’s not that I was on the edge of my seat in Toy Story 3, it’s that the toys obeying prison yard rules before falling into the pit of fire was traumatic imagery.

The same is true of Brave.  I saw this in a second run theatre over the weekend with a 5 year old.  He spent most of the film with his head buried in his seat.  I wasn’t far off.

Brave is not so much a story about a princess who wants to avoid an arranged marriage, as it is a Celtic version of Brother Bear.  The princess finds a witch (by way of a glowing trail of Will O’ the Wisps) and asks her for a potion that will change her mother (the queen) and therefore change the princess’ fate.  When Princess tricks her mother into eating the magic cake, I thought she’d been poisoned.  Instead, the magic of the one bite of cake turns mom into a bear (leaving the rest of the cake for her dessert stealing male triplets).  The king, by the way, lost his leg a decade earlier to a bear attack.  We’re not concerned he’s going to find out about mom and run her off.  He legitimately tries to kill her.  In the moments when the Queen and Princess are finally trying to break the spell, having mended the disagreement between mom and daughter; dad is swinging away trying to remove momma bear’s head.

This is not a children friendly movie.

Horrifying moments aside, Pixar has made a lot of technical advances in the 17 years since Toy Story shocked everyone.  The hair rendering for the princess’ unkempt mop is fantastic, as are the environment, fluids, and particles.  Basically, this film is visually very good.  The cinematic direction and soundtrack are excellent.

The characters are, mostly, caricatures of Scots.  The princess is pretty stereotypical of the tomboy girl who can fight.  It’s believable in this story because she’s actually encouraged to do so by her father, in stark contrast to her mother’s etiquette lessons.

The story is supposed to be one of mother and daughter learning to understand and appreciate each other.  It kind of fails here.  Through her transformative transformation, the queen does learn to appreciate her rambunctious daughter’s position.  The daughter learns, apparently, that dosing your mother with a cake made by a wood carving witch in the woods is a horrible mistake.  Not because she doesn’t get what she wants out of the ordeal, but because turning your mom into a bear means you might have to watch while your amputee revenge seeking, bear hating father turns her into a trophy.

Oh, by the way, when mom and the triplets are transformed back into people, they’re naked.  Maybe Pixar is reaching for another genre?

This is not another impassioned plea for a U. S. release of Space Battleship Yamato.  This is a rare, opening day, review of the historical drama starring and directed by Ben Affleck.  Due mostly to Daredevil, it is common in the circles I travel to dislike Ben.  It’s fair to say I buck some trends just for spite, but I genuinely like him.  This movie is one more reason to.

Argo is “loosely based on” the true story of the Iran Hostage Crisis from 1979 to 1981.  It is not, specifically, about the 52 members of the U.S. Embassy staff held in Tehran for 444 days, but about a covert mission to extract 6 of their coworkers who evaded capture on the first day.  Sheltered amid great peril by the Canadian consulate, these 6 were eventually exfiltrated by collaboration of the three most technologically advanced nations in North America: Canada, the United States, and Hollywood.

“Darkly comedic suspense” is the typical critic description.  The only thing dark about the comedy is the events happening around it.  The comedy flows naturally.  The suspense is equally organic.  Despite being mostly set in the Middle East during a fairly violent time, the movie is very quiet.  This allows the actors, and not some explosion filled gun battle, to be the focus of the film.  There is a ludicrous, climactic chase scene, of course; Argo is still a Hollywood product.

There are a lot of things to love about this film.  I’ve mentioned the acting.  Ben Affleck plays against type pulling off what he should have done with Jack Ryan, as a believable, professional, CIA operative.  Bryan Cranston… c’mon have you seen Breaking Bad?  Bryan Cranston is awesome.  John Goodman delivers up to expectation as an FX makeup artist and “company” confidant.  I should point out my expectations of John Goodman are pretty high.  Alan Arkin, as the producer of the titular film within the film…  If I ever write a movie scene where one character tells another to “go fuck yourself,” just go ahead and cast Alan Arkin now.

At the core of the exfiltration plan is a cover story about making a science fiction film shot in an exotic location.  To strengthen the cover story, a cast of actors read the script for the press, in costume—“classic” costumes reused from late ‘70s-early ‘80s Sci-Fi TV and Movies.

The movie was shot blown up to make it look grainy and ‘70s like.  Argo doesn’t just look period appropriate, it feels it.  And that’s the best accomplishment of any film, to evoke feeling from the audience.  We really feel the tension and danger of the situation, even knowing it will eventually be “all right.”

As for the ludicrous chase at the end of the movie, the escape was narrow enough without Iranian militants drag racing against a 747 all the way to the barriers (185 knots at V2 on a 13 thousand foot runway).  Feel free to ignore that scene, there’s no way it happened.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a better movie for people who want to return to Peter Jackson’s portrayal of Middle Earth than it is for people who want to see an adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s classic children’s book.  So, naturally, we loved it.

Prior to the release of the film, today, I had been very suspicious.  After completion of principal photography, Peter Jackson declared that The Hobbit, which is based on a rather short novel written for young readers, would require not two theatrical releases as he had planned, but three.  It frankly seemed like a money grab.  The only way to stretch this out to three films would be to treat the audience to either: an agonizingly slow treatment, excessive traipses through New Zealand’s stunning landscapes, and a third movie composed entirely of a three hour gore-fest version of the Battle of Five Armies; or a lot of new material not included in the source work.

Based on the first film, it will be a little of both.

There is a tremendous amount of material, so far, trying to establish “The Hobbit There and Back Again” as a firm prequel to The Lord of the Rings, instead of simply being a story in the same lands which happened before the other.  A mystery illness afflicts forest dwellers prompting Radaghast the Brown, who was omitted from the film version of Lord of the Rings but present in the book, to seek out Gandalf, shortly after “Mithrandir” identifies all five wizards of his order by name.  Thorin Oakenshield, who is probably my second favorite dwarf (edging out Tyrion Lannister but falling just behind Kili, whom I once played on stage), gains a rich back story and an orcish arch-foe in this film.  The arrival of Smaug to Erebore (the kingdom under the Lonely Mountain) is shown, though the dragon himself is not.  It feels a little like they’re holding back for a big reveal, but they do an awesome job with the depiction of Smaug “vomiting fire,” as most dragons are described to do.

Riddles in the Dark, the introduction of Gollum, is right up to par.  His portrayal is fantastic.

Despite generously heaping helpings of material from other of Tolkien’s works, there are a few moments where it feels like they were keeping every inch of film shot.  Thorin and the pale orc, who killed his grandfather, face off.  The camera flips back and forth between their changing expressions.  It goes on for so long that I thought it could only end with a kiss.

There are some moments of CGI with obvious “haloing,” which is just disappointing.  The spectacular landscapes of New Zealand, however, never disappoint.

All in all, it is a well shot film, stuffed with action, and good depth and growth of character.  Do not skip this one unless you intend to skip all three.  As shouted by Bilbo Baggins exiting The Shire, “[we’re] going on an adventure!”

I’m not one for spoilers, generally, but if it’s not obvious in the first few minutes of This Is the End, you’re probably going to be lost.  This Is the End is a supremely dark, raunchy, and strangely hilarious, movie about the Rapture.

Yes, you read that right.  Flat out, this movie is about the end of days, the book of “Revelation,” the Rapture and Armageddon—they even read from the Bible to figure out what’s going on.

The movie opens with “Jay,” played by Jay Baruchel (How to Train Your Dragon and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice), arriving in Los Angeles to visit his best friend “Seth Rogan,” played by Seth Rogan.  After a short, drug filled, hang out session, they head to a party at “Franco’s House.”  Franco, of course, is “James Franco,” played by James Franco.  Also in attendance is a plethora of Hollywood’s B+ list.  The movie is partially a parody of the central cast’s friendly relationships.  Jay, for example, hates Jonah Hill (you should be seeing a trend in casting by now).  Jonah, conversely, is very concerned with getting Jay to like him.  To flee this squabble, Jay and Seth go to a convenience store.  While buying cigarettes, the ground opens up, fires start, and two thirds of the population is lifted into the sky by blue lights—seriously, it is the Rapture.

The entire guest list of James Franco’s party (more cameos than a Muppet movie) is “Left Behind.”  Most of them are killed or sucked down in a few minutes of terrifying hilarity.  Jay, Seth, James Franco, Jonah, Craig Robinson, and Danny McBride remain to attempt to survive roaming demon hounds, growing fires, a really justifiably pissed off Hermione Weasley (they got married right?), and Satan clawing in through their own selfishness.

It is this last one that makes the movie interesting, and also really funny.  The film is really about caricatures of these well-known actors trying to resolve their own relationships with each other.  The interactions, which are largely ad lib, are where the best humor of the film lays.  It should be noted that the people in the film are fictional characters, loosely based on the actors playing them.  It’s a sort of “who you would imagine the people behind the characters in their films might be”—narcissistic self-absorbed drug-addicts who rip on each other’s performances and want to get together to hang out, or do sequels to their favorite films, you know, if someone has a camera.

All in all, I really enjoyed it.  It really is unlike any other film.  It is all the most off-color stuff these guys couldn’t get away with in other films.  We’re pretty open about liking raunchy stuff here, and this film is no exception.  I laughed openly and loudly, sometimes wondered if I should be laughing, but did anyway.

One warning: I think the MPAA might have gotten it wrong.  This film is only rated “R.”

For those that haven’t seen Sharknado 2: The Second One, you might be upset by this spoiler. If you are, please join the rest of humanity in using your whole brain and not just the 10% of it required to run your eyes.

Yeah, going in to this one, you know the entire plot before you finish reading the title. What you might not know is that it is one of the funniest movies so far this year.

A little over a decade ago, Marc and I had a conversation with the (then) producer of Sci-Fi Channel’s Saturday night monster movies. We pitched him a giant six legged crocodile monster, which reproduced by eating people and combining their DNA with its own and incubating them in its excrement. I still remember the delighted look on his face as he declared that “Crocodile Poop Monster” was “exactly” the sort of thing he was looking for.

I flashed back to that delighted look when, in Sharknado 2: The Second One, the filmmakers obviously had to figure out a way to make a full variety of sharks falling out of a tornado even more frightening.

“How about some of them are on fire!”