Hmm, okay, so ... where did we last leave off? Oh, right, I was supposed to be off to embark on an exciting weekend of fun-filled adventures with my old BU roommate, Chris A, who was in town from Phoenix. And that did happen. Chris and I and some other friends of his who made the journey from the Valley of the Sun had a great weekend. We hit up Hollywood, Long Beach, and relived the good ol' days when we were naive young freshman at Boston University. All in all, it was a really fun couple of days.
So as you read that, I'm sure you were waiting for the other shoe to drop ... the proverbial "but," if you will. Well, the short version is that we were *supposed* to get in to see a taping of The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien, but it fell through. It wasn't really anyone's fault except for the security guards at Universal Studios, who for some reason had a major stick up their @$$ on this particular occasion. Suffice it to say, I wasn't able to park where I thought I'd be able to park, and wasn't able to talk to the people with whom I thought I'd be able to talk. So basically, my hopes that I'd scored last-minute guest-list tix to see Conan were quickly and harshly dashed. I am sorely tempted to go on one of my trademark RANTS OF DOOM as I write this, but out of respect for The Tonight Show and the people who work there I will not. In fact, it's because my friends and I are such huge fans of the show that we were all the more disappointed not to get in to the taping, and really, the reasons why have more to do with the crazy red tape that you have to deal with when working at a studio with multiple lots and locations, in which security is trained to be ultra-strict and stubborn. And then there's the Charlie Brown factor ... for whatever reason, I have terrible luck with these types of situations. Any situation that requires dealing with authority figures on a high horse or power trip, I just can't deal. And for some reason, despite being a certified Nice Jewish Boy (it says so right here on my blog!), people always seem to want to pick a fight with me. All I can say is ... dammit all.
Anyways, despite all that, like I said, it was a fun weekend with Chris and co. For one weekend only, the band was back together!
And by the way ... in the midst of our crazy Friday afternoon, we somehow had an insane number of celebrity sightings in the span of a few hours. We saw Courtney Cox pulling out of the Uni parking lot, followed by Penn and Teller walking to their car, and later, Adam Corrolla walking into my building. Sweet!
TV STUFF:
- Mercifully, the wave of new TV episodes is finally starting to slow down a bit as we head towards the holidays. Still, I wanted to talk about this past Thursday's episode of FRINGE, which I wasn't able to get to in my last post ...
- FRINGE on Thursday was interesting. Over the last few weeks, I've been complaining about the decently-entertaining yet frustratingly inconsequential standalone episodes we've seen of late from Fringe. The wait between mytharc-centric eps has been a long one, and even the Observer episode from the other week didn't seem to add all that much to the show's overall sense of forward momentum. This week, we got another freak-of-the-week ep that *could* have been one more merely okay installment, save for one thing: the focus on Walter Bishop. I mean, the thing that's kept Fringe afloat these last several weeks has been the great character stuff that makes the show a pleasure to watch, even when the plotlines aren't firing on all cylinders. This week though, the show really zeroed in on Walter, and it was a veritable showcase for the awesomeness of John Noble, and a testament as to just how much humor, range, and yes, gravitas, he brings to the character of Walter. Walter's fragile mental state was one of those fundamental story points of the show's premise that I had huge concerns about going into the pilot. I just didn't know if it could come across on screen as anything other than goofy. But man, Noble has hit this one out of the park, and this episode was a fine showcase for Walter's central struggle - how to maintain his dignity while bearing the burden of his past sins? The main plot here was pretty forgettable - sure, there were some nasty-looking parasite creatures that used humans as vessels to produce a parasitic super-drug (!) - but it was mostly good for a few gross-out moments. The real draw here was Walter trying to establish his independence from Peter, and in doing so getting himself into more trouble than he bargained for, and seriously endangering Astrid in the process. This was dramatic, moving stuff, and I like it because it makes the stakes that much higher and more personal when the big sci-fi storyline stuff inevitably goes down. I do still think that Fringe needs to refine its standalone episode formula though. This one worked because it was so character-centric, but it still annoyed me that the monster-of-the-week, and the characters behind it, felt so underdeveloped and glossed-over. Without compelling villains or threats, it's hard for these kinds of eps to really make that much of a lasting impact. That said, please ... just give John Noble his freakin' Emmy.
My Grade: B+
- No FOX Sunday night TV this week ...
- I've been continuing my mission to watch some of the best films of the 00's that I've somehow missed. My latest was AMERICAN PSYCHO, which I've actually owned on DVD for a couple of years now, but somehow never got around to watching until now. I really enjoyed the film, particularly for Christian Bale's breakthrough performance as yuppie serial killer Patrick Bateman. At the same time, I felt like the movie itself was pretty messy (and not just in the obvious ways ... ahem). I actually went online to read up on the movie and the book on which it's based, because I was left with so many questions after watching the movie. I think there was an odd balance where the movie was trying to be artfully ambiguous, yet never quite went deep enough. Rather than having a Usual Suspects-style "everything you thought you knew was false" moment, the movie constantly makes you wonder what's real versus what is simply the product of Bateman's potentially-delusional mind. It gives the movie a loose, semi-surreal tone, but it never completely worked for me. Still, it's a phenomenal performance by Bale, and I could easily see how someone watching it thought that the guy would make an amazing Batman. When a third Batman movie gets made, I'd love to see Bale really mine the same kind of psychological depths that he does in this one.
- Okay, I've got a couple of movie reviews that I've been chomping at the bit to write, so here's my longtime-coming look at Wes Anderson's latest ...
FANTASTIC MR. FOX Review:
- I'm a big Wes Anderson fan, and unlike many, my appreciation for his work has only grown with each new movie. Rushmore and The Royal Tannenbaums are, of course, the films that made me sit up and take notice of Anderson's unique sensibilities, but it was the Life Aquatic, which debuted to decidedly mixed reviews, that made me a bonafide fan. I was even a big proponent of The Darjeeling Limited, which I think took Anderson's quirky style to its logical extreme. In any case, I guess my point is that I was excited for Fantastic Mr. Fox, but wasn't looking at it as a potential return to form, as some others surely were. Instead, I was hoping for Wes Anderson to continue his streak of quirky quality films, and perhaps branch out to new stylistic territory thanks to this movie's unique medium (stop-motion animation) and subject matter (being adapted, of course, from the classic Rohl Dahl book of the same name). The end result is a movie that's definitely unique and fun and interesting, but one that also, to me, feels like a weird mashup of classic Wes Anderson with standard kids-movie fare. While I enjoyed the movie, I also felt like it didn't 100% work either as a great Wes Anderson movie or as a great kids movie. What it is then, is a refreshingly original film that nonetheless never fully comes together as it should.
The first thing you have to talk about here though is the amazing visuals. Fantastic Mr. Fox is a movie that you could almost just sit back and watch sans dialogue. Everything has a hand-crafted, meticulously-detailed quality to it that makes it a sort of bright, furry, hipster cousin to The Nightmare Before Christmas. It's funny though because the bright colors, multi-layered sets, and eccentric, quasi-retro look of previous Anderson movies has been fully transplanted here. I highly doubt there's ever seen an animated movie that bears so many of the trademarks of a director's live-action works, but here it is. But yeah, the detail of the sets, the personality of the characters, the pop and liveliness of the visuals really is pretty remarkable. I've never seen an animated movie that looks quite like this one.
But even as the visuals mirror Wes Anderson's live-action movies, so too do the dialogue and characters, and the larger themes of the narrative as well. As soon as you hear some of the familiar actors from the Anderson troupe doing voices (Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson ...), you can't help but think "yep, this is definitely a Wes Anderson movie." I should mention though that the voice acting is really good. That is to be expected with the likes of George Clooney and Meryl Streep and the aformentioned actors like Murray and Schwartzman, but they really do a quality job in giving a spark to the fast-paced, bouncy dialogue.
With the unique visuals and stellar voicecast, you'd expect that this one would be a sure-thing, can't-miss movie. It almost is, but as I alluded to, thematically it falls a bit flat. The tone feels too angsty and detached to really work as a movie for kids. At the same time, the basic premise of the story is too cutesy and light-hearted to fully work as a proper Wes Anderson movie. It's an odd combo. Honestly, the movie's best scenes are the ones that work on a purely visual level. That's when the film really shines - when it just has fun with the stop-motion characters and gets playful with the uniqueness of the medium. But other times, the movie is sort of boring. The nature of the visuals leaves us wanting more of fun and fast-paced action. But instead, there is A LOT of emo-riffic talking and philosophizing and quasi-hipster brooding. And that stuff tends to work in Anderson's live-action films, but here, it just felt out of place. Sure, you can have all that as subtext, but when you have such awesome stop-motion animation to play with, it seems a waste to have so many scenes that just trudge along.
It's weird, a certain contingent of critics have been fawning all over both this movie and Where the Wild Things Are. Both movies to me suffered from trying to cram a bunch of teenage and adult-appropriate angst into stories that are really meant to connect with kids. That can work when the process is seamless (check out most Pixar movies for how to do it right), but in a movie like Fantastic Mr. Fox, you end up with a disconnect between the basic concept of the story and the voice of the filmmaker.
Still, I did enjoy the movie and I do think it's worth checking out. There are some funny moments, and the visuals alone are worth taking in on a big-screen. I think this one will ultimately prove semi-forgettable though. Personally, I look forward to seeing Wes Anderson make movies that will instead, like his best films, leave a lasting impression.
My Grade: B
Alright ... next up: a review of UP IN THE AIR!
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