Monday, July 16, 2007

Who Needs the Kwik-E-Mart? I doooooooo ... HARRY POTTER and RATATOUILLE - Reviewed! Plus much MORE!

What up people.

So this weekend I had the awesome experience of going to a real, live, Kwik-E-Mart. How awesome is that? And it was a mere five minutes from me in Burbank. Now, many people here in LA diss Burbank, and to some extent I understand their disdain. But right now, I take great pride in the fact that my adopted city here in California is home to a honest-to-goodness Kwik-E-Mart. So choke on that, Santa Monica. For pics of me slurping Squishees and chomping on Forbidden Donuts, see me on Facebook or MySpace.

Seriously though, brilliant marketing move by FOX and 7-11. The lines to get into this 7-11-turned-Kwik-e-Mart have been wrapping around the block all week, and kids, tourists, and Simpsons fans alike have all been flocking to it and downing Squishees by the bucketfull. And I admit, this hype is making me strangely excited for the Simpsons movie. I'm still anxious and skeptical about whether it will actually be good, but walking into a Kwik-E-Mart and seeing a Buzz Cola machine got me into a Simpsons state of mind. Please lord let this movie be good ...

- I was just reading this great article on The Onion AV Club about cable TV networks and how so many of the classic nets have gone so downhill in recent years. Sure, nets like MTV are a given on any such list of cable outlets that have taken a nosedive, but the article got me thinking about some of the other channels that I used to love that are now far removed from their glory days. Some cable channels that I agree have gone to crap:

Nickelodeon - Okay, everyone knows that the 80's and 90's were a golden age for kids TV, and Nick was right at the forefront. But the question is, will today's crop of shows be regarded as classics by the younger generation in the same way Gen Y reveres Salute Your shorts or Pete and Pete? I'm gonna go with a big fat NEGATIVE on that one. Nothing on Nick right now is anywhere near the subversive comedy of a Ren and Stimpy or the timeless appeal of Hey Dude.

Nick at Nite - Wow, where did this one go wrong? Nick at Nite should have always been about classic TV from the 50's and 60's, and some 70's, period. Every time I turn it on and see Rosanne or (shudder) Home Improvement I feel sick. I used to spend hours watching Dennis the Menace, Dick Van Dyke, Bewitched, etc. Please fix this.

Cartoon Network - I used to watch a ton of Cartoon Network and Adult Swim as recently as a few years back. I still like the Futurama reruns and stuff like Harvey Birdman, but a.) all the non Adult Swim programming is terrible - give me Dexter's Labratory or Looney Tunes reruns any day over the random anime crap they have now, and, b.) a lot of the newer Adult Swim stuff is just lame.

VH1 - Man, has this net gone downhill in a short period. To me, the VH1 heyday was the Pop-Up Video era, where there always seemed to be something cool to watch that was actually MUSIC-RELATED. I used to watch so many random Top 100 lists, Behind the Music's, etc. Now, surprise surprise, it's all lame reality shows ... with the notable exception of Best Week Ever, which is still pretty good

TNT - I realize TNT has tried to class itself up, but man do I miss the old, sleazier TNT. Movies for Guys Who Like Movies - now that was a programming block. How many times did I turn on TNT late at night and settle in to watch Robocop, Escape From New York, or Beastmaster. Man, those were the days.

Well, that's just a sampling. To read The Onion's take, click here: http://www.avclub.com/content/node/63865

- Saw two movies this weekend, so without further ado here are some reviews:

- HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX Review:

To me, the Harry Potter movies have always been entertaining, but nothing to write home about. I was firmly off the Harry Potter bandwagon for a long while, and had gone a long time without ever seeing any of the movies or reading any of the books. Finally, before the fourth movie came out, my brother sat me down one week while I was home in CT and made me watch the first three. I enjoyed them, but there was this lingering sense that they were kind of cobbled together from the books, trying almost as much to fit in beloved characters and scenes and subplots as they were to tell a complete and self-contained story. As a non-reader of the books, these movies to me have always seemed sidtant and incomplete. As I approached the release of Order of the Phoenix, I could recall the basic outline of the Harry Potter mythology, but would have been at a loss to conjure up any of the details of the plots or characters. Up until now, Harry Potter has just not been something that really stuck with me. And I think part of that is that these movies have all had moments of visual splendor, but have really not had much in the way of plot. As a Potter movie watcher and not a book reader, the plotline seems to me oh-so-basic - Harry is essentially the Chosen One, a wizard-in-training marked by a mysterious scar, whose destiny is to combat the evil Voldemort, some kind of evil being whose return is constantly foreshadowed. Now again, I can already hear all the book readers crying out for me to read the books to get the whole picture. Well, I'm reviewing the movie, not the book. And to me, the movies have been uneventful and umemorable to the point where I know that I kind of like the characters, but really have no concept of what actually HAPPENS in any of the individual movies.

Well, lo and behold - to me, this fifth movie was the best one yet. For once, it seemed like everything had a clear purpose and that all of the plot points were leading somewhere definitive. Director David Yates did a wonderful job with this one, he really directed the hell out of it. I finally felt like this was a Harry Potter where the premise was quickly and powerfully laid out, and the stakes really felt high. In addition to Yates, a lot of the credit has to go to the three primary cast members. All three have, amazingly, become great actors. Daniel Radcliffe especially does a great job here - he makes Harry complex, darker than before, and always interesting to watch.

And with Yates' darker, more layered movie, the rest of the outstanding cast really has a chance to shine. In previous movies, I kind of took it for granted that I was watching talent like Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, etc. Here, I remember pausing on several occasions and thinking how great this cast was, and how they were all really getting a chance to shine and show off their acting chops, even if they had smaller roles than before in some cases. Particularly great was series newcomer Imelda Staunton as Isabella Umbridge, who came off as Queen Elizabeth meets The Schoolteacher from Hell who was like a magic, Victorian version of someone out of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Also, I really liked the character of Luna Lovegood, who was a lot of fun and suitably zany. Helena Bonham Carter only made a brief appearance, but she was perfect for her role as a deranged escapee from the magical prison Azkaban.

Overall, I really enjoyed the superb cast, and thought that Harry, Hermione, and Ron were all great thanks to a trio of teen actors who ahve really come into their own. I thought the direction was excellent, even artful at times, with lots of cool visuals used sparingly for maximum effectiveness. And I really liked the sense of foreboding, the feeling that business was picking up for a climactic struggle in the next movie or two. In the end, it was probably my favorite Harry Potter movie yet.

My one complaint is the same one I've had with all of the films. I felt like the plot was incomplete, and I felt like I was getting the broad strokes but missing out on key details. For example, one of the focal points of the movie is how the shady Ministry of Magic has coopted the school and denied all specualtion that Voldemort had returned. Naturally, we are led to assume that the reason for this is that the Ministry is somehow in cahoots with the Big Bad, or something ... instead, we never get any real reason for why the Ministry is so stubborn and antagonistic. If they've always been this way, then why are they only now a factor in the world of Potter? Same goes for the Order of the Phoenix - after all, they do give the movie its title. And yet, I still have no idea why this secret order exists or what its purpose is. I still don't feel like I 100% get who Sirius Black is or why he's important, and I don't understand Malfoy's connection to Voldemort. Again, I get the broad strokes, but I don't think the scripts in these movies have done a great job of being very user-friendly. In fact, leaving out any real motivation for the Ministry or any real purpose for the Order really ends up detracting from the effectiveness of the film. It makes me wonder if creating these films while the books are still being published was the best decision, creatively, that could have been made.

So don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the movie and am now anticipating the next one much more than I thought I would. But part of that is simply to get some answers to the questions that probably should have already been explained.

My Grade: B+

RATATOUILLE Review:

- Pixar is, simply, amazing. They have yet to make a subpar film. With each new film, they raise the bar in terms of CG animation. And with Pixar you are always getting something new, something timeless, something of the utmost quality. Ratatouille is another stellar achievement for the studio, and yet another example of why, amidst so much clutter in terms of wave after wave of kid-friendly CGI movies being released, Pixar's films stand head and shoulders above the rest of the pack.

The first thing about Ratatouille that I can't say enough about is the visuals. In terms of pure detail and quality, this may have been the greatest example of CGI animation I've yet seen. The characters burst off the screen, with all of the emotion and cartoonish simplicity of classic Disney animation. And yet, the textures are shockingly real. You can practically reach out and touch the food, feel the water. There are scenes where objects like envelopes, pots and pans, and street lamps are so meticulously textured that they look like the real world in stereo. The visual detail is just unprecedented. But then, I can't say enough about Brad Bird. He directs this movie with so much energy and artistry. The action scenes combine the kineticism of classic animation with the photorealism and digital gloss of the most high-tech CGI available. Everything is so artfully, masterfully done - if nothing else, Ratatouille is an joy just to watch. The visuals, direction, and cinematography are completely top-notch.

In terms of the story, well, in the end it really won me over. At times, I thought it was almost too out-there for the type of film that Brad Bird was going for. Most times with a movie like this, there's not too much time spent on "the rules." That is to say, in Cars, we immediately accept that we're in a world of living, breathing automobiles and leave it at that. Here, we have to learn that the rats who are our main characters are, in fact, normal rats living in our own world. However, our main character, Remy (the rat), has somehow learned to understand human-speak, can read books, and even communicate with people via particularly expressive nods of the head or shrugs of his mouse shoulders. Meanwhile, Remy is able to turn our main human character, the hapless Linguini, into a Top Chef, by manipulating his actions like a puppetmaster pulling strings. Remy sits on Linguini's head, and pulls his strands of hair like puppet-strings, and somehow, after some practice, the result is like a kid pressing buttons on a videogame joystick. And also, Remy talks to the advice-giving ghost of a deceased human chef, though it's not REALLY a ghost, just a figment of Remy's imagination. Got all that?

Somehow, Ratatouille makes this all work. But there are times when it almost gets to be too much to take in. Things also get a bit off-track at times whenever Linguini takes center stage. He's presented as a bumbling, not-very-inspiring guy who kind of coasts on Remy's cooking expertise yet somehow gets the girl and has the requisite Disney happy ending. But Linguini to me was a slightly jarring character just because he never really became 100% likable. Even at movie's end, he hasn't really accomplished anything and just seems like an oddball guy who made out good after being in the right place at the right time. It certainly makes for a departure from a typical Disney leading man, that's for sure.

But like I said, the movie may at times be a bit complex for its own good, but mostly, it pulls it off. The writing is sharp, and in the end Bird smartly boils down the film's message into one simple idea: true artistic genius can come from anywhere, even the unlikeliest of places.

It doesn't hurt that the voice cast is universally great. Patton Oswalt does a very nice job as Remy, and gives the rodent a lot of energy but also a necessary undercurrent of weariness and sadness. The highlight though may have been Peter O'Toole as dour food critic Anton Ego, easily one of the movie's standout characters. O'Toole is just awesome here, and is both a sharp parody of shark-like critics and the film's unexpected emotional core.

In the end, I can't stress enough that while film-goers may be weary of so many animated animals in theaters as of late, this is nonetheless a must-see film for anyone regardless of age. This is another Pixar classic, and more proof that Brad Bird may be one of the top creative forces in Hollywood today. The movie is in some ways so ambitious that I did feel like it perhaps bit off a bit more than it could chew, but mostly, I was mesmerized by the visuals and the creativity on display. No lame pop-culture references or cheesy song-and-dance numbers necessary, Ratouille exudes class and timelessness, and is another proud achievement for Pixar and its still-spotless track-record.

My Grade: A -

Alright, I am outta here. Congratulations on surviving another Monday!

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