Men in Black 3

Men in Black 3 (2012) comes out fifteen years after the original, and ten years after the sequel. I imagine there's a good number of audiences for whom Men in Black 3 will be a totally new experience. Fortunately, the movie turns out to be a good place to start even if you haven't seen the first two.

Men in Black is a secret agency, lead by Agent O (Emma Thompson), assigned to monitor and suppress alien activity on Earth while keeping the populace ignorant of its happenings. After breaking out of a moon-based security prison, Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement) decides to go back in time and eliminate the person who arrested him - Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones). When he does so, Agent J (Will Smith) is the only one who has realized that the timeline has been changed and he too travels back to July 15, 1969, the day before Agent K is killed. After overcoming some disbelief, J manages to convince the younger Agent K (Josh Brolin) and others of just who he is and why he's there. With the help of a 5th dimensional being named Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg) who can see all time lines, they track Boris down.  In the process J learns a well-hidden secret, something K had never told him.

Men in Black 3 features some wacky antics that made the first two movies so fun; combating undercover aliens in ironic situations with lots of funny cultural references. Will Smith acts like his wacky Will Smith self and Tommy Lee Jones acts like the grumpy, experienced older guy with some nearly imperceptibly subtle humor. There are moments of humorously illogical sci-fi reasoning such as Agent O deduces that there has been a fracture in the space-time continuum based on J's sudden insatiable craving for chocolate milk to ease his headaches. But the movie goes a bit further; the story is more complex than the previous movies and we've also got time travel escapades which are usually fun.

Most of the movie takes place in the 1960's, and the way they depicted the 60's was amazing. Yes, there are lots of extras in very convincing costumes that were contemporary of the time period, but the science fiction elements were made to look 60's-ish as well. In the present, the MiB's weapons and gadgetry looked sleek, sophisticated, and high-tech. In the 60's their weapons and gadgets looked more like the ray guns and gadgets from the original Star Trek, Lost in Space, and Flash Gordon TV shows. Even the aliens they meet resembled the oversized rubber-suit monsters from sci-fi horror movies of the 1960's. Not only was this funny, but it also gave and interesting method of setting development that was interesting to watch.

The acting in this movie was outstanding, especially on the part of Josh Brolin. He looks, sounds, and acts so much like an actual, younger version Tommy Lee Jones it is uncanny! I think it was a more impressive performance than Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing a younger Bruce Willis in Looper. He captures Jones' voice and mannerisms so perfectly you can't help but assume that Josh Brolin will inevitably turn into Tommy Lee Jones sometime in the future. He also brought some new quirks to the character of Agent K; young K actually smiles once in awhile as if he is not yet jaded or world-weary as is his older counterpart.

Jemaine Clement plays the villain in this role. I totally didn't recognize him with the makeup job at all. Clement is a New Zealand musician and stars in a comedy TV show called Flight of the Concords. I've never actually seen it, but I did not see Clement in Boris the Animal at all. He plays a nasty villain with some weirdly funny, subtle, deadpan humor himself. He played a great villain and I'd love to see Clement in more acting gigs.

My favorite character was easily Griffin. He's this 5th dimensional being and the last of his species. With time travel stories there is often a sense of determinism and fate which lends to some pessimistic moods a lot of the time. Griffin is a combination of string theory and a zen master. He can see all possible outcomes, and is often frightened when things start going wrong, "Negative possibilities are multiplying as we speak!" But even though determinism is present in this time travel story, Griffin's character helps remind us that while we can't control everything, we always have the ability to make out own choices. That brought a sense of optimism to the movie.

Men in Black 3 had some plot holes in it, but it wasn't a bad movie. I enjoyed it for what it was. It was funny, exciting, wacky, and just plain fun. The movie has a great cast, excellent acting, fun characters, and a good plot. Watch out for funny little details in the background when you watch it; both Lady Gaga and Tim Burton appear on the Men in Black's monitors as suspected aliens. Men in Black 3 is an above average renter and possibly worth owning if you're a long time fan of Men in Black.

Do you like the Men in Black series? Which one is your favorite? Comment below and let me know!

Life of Pi Movie Review

I had a copy of the book Life of Pi by Yann Martel a couple of years back. As soon as I saw the trailer for Ang Lee's movie (2012) based on the book I regretted parting with the book before taking the chance to read it. The movie was a beautiful spectacle to behold, and had many layers left to personal interpretation.

In Canada, a writer (Rafe Spall) visits the Indian storyteller Pi Patel (Irrfan Khan) and asks him to tell his life story. Pi tells the story of his childhood in Pondicherry, India, and the origins of his peculiar nickname. One day, his father, a zoo owner, explains that the municipality is no longer supporting the zoo and he has hence decided to move to Canada, where the animals the family owns would be sold. They board a Japanese cargo ship with the animals and out of the blue, there is a storm, following by a shipwrecking. 16-year-old Pi (Suraj Sharma) survives in a lifeboat with a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and a male Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker. They are adrift in the Pacific Ocean, with the aggressive hyena and Richard Parker getting hungry. Pi needs to find a way to survive.

Life of Pi is, without question, a work of art. The colors are so vivid, the CGI work is remarkable, the art direction is fantastic, and the locations where the film was shot are beautiful. A lot of the movie takes place at sea and to get many of these shots blue screens were probably used, but it's so well integrated that you would hardly guess they were anywhere near land. There's some exceptional artistic photography where the camera is looking up through some very still water, and we don't realize it until a person swims by, causing some ripples in the water surface which distort the picturesque architecture shot we are viewing. Life of Pi is absolutely gorgeous to behold. Normally, I don't care for 3D movies, but similar to Hugo, I imagine this would be extraordinary to see in 3D since it was filmed in 3D by a master film maker.

The layers in Life of Pi will likely spark some interesting philosophical debates. Early on we are presented with the idea of the importance of storytelling. Pi is a religious character who follows three religions; Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. Each of these religions have their own set of tales and fables used to spread the teachings and illustrate the beliefs of their respective theology. Pi believes that each of the stories might simply be aspects of a greater, universal story of God and of love. Truth is brought into question in that authentically objective truth isn't  usually possible. There can be different kinds of truth that all hint at a broader understanding of things; things can be factually true, emotionally true, or even spiritually true. Even if you ignore the philosophical and theological implication of Life of Pi and simply take it at face value as a tale about a young man on a lifeboat with a huge tiger, it's still fascinating story.

Pi was a great character. He leads a fascinating life and has interesting experiences that make him the person he is. He's a very believable character. Richard Parker is also an interesting character. Yes, he's a feral tiger and it is not ever suggested that he is anything other than that; but giving the tiger a name makes the tiger more of a character than one would expect. They are not friends by any means, they are in fact nemeses. Their relationship is that of conflict and necessity which is enthralling since one of them is a 480 pound feral predator and the other is a skinny vegetarian. I can't think of another story that has this kind of a relationship in it and not once did this spiral downward into an Old Yeller boy-and-his-tiger sort of cheesy story.

A story about a boy stuck in a lifeboat with a tiger could get really boring, but Life of Pi remains interesting on many levels and has absolutely stunning visuals. This movie shows us that you can have a movie that uses state of the art special effects technology to help tell a good story without being a loud, boisterous CGI action fest. It's darker than you would expect for a PG movie, and I don't imagine many 10-year-olds are going to be all that captivated by it. While not actually a religious movie, I think it touched on spirituality much better than movies which go out of their way to be a religiously based film. Life of Pi has an interesting ending that is left to personal interpretation much like Inception, and will likely spark some interesting discussion afterwards. I think Life of Pi is worth owning on Blu-Ray. I intend to get it in 3D so I can see some outstanding 3D effects done by a masterful director.

What is your favorite special effects-intensive movie? Comment below and tell me all about it!

Fried Green Tomatoes Movie Review

I have heard about the movie Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) for ages.  I remember thinking that having an unusual Southern appetizer as the name for a movie was a strange idea. I finally got around to seeing it, and I think it is an above average movie with some lovable characters.

Evelyn Couch  (Cathy Bates) is having trouble in her marriage, and no one seems to take her seriously. When in a nursing home visiting relatives, she meets Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy), an outgoing old woman who tells Evelyn the story if Idgie Threadgoode (Mary Stuart Masterson), a young woman in 1920's Alabama. There was a murder in their small town of Whistle Stop, many people thought it was Idgie. Through Idgie's inspiring life with her friend Ruth (Mary-Louise Parker), Evelyn learns to be more assertive and builds a lasting friendship of her own with Ninny.

In most cases movies which have a bulk of the story shown as flashbacks seem superfluous. Why not just have a movie about the old time period instead of hopping back and forth between the present and the past? When movies do this, they almost always have a moment at the end where (gasp!) the person telling the story is actually the young person from all those years ago! Once in a while, it works well, as it did in Citizen Kane, but usually it doesn't. What makes Fried Green Tomatoes survive this flashback structure is the fact that it has an interesting character to be the listener to the long-ago tale.

Cathy Bates is pretty much amazing in everything she is in. Here she plays a dowdy, but ladylike Southern woman who is an empty nester, unhappily married, yearns to rekindle the lost love with her distant husband, but she exudes low self-esteem. She goes to classes with other southern women in an attempt to save her marriage and gain confidence and acceptance for herself. It's fun to watch her develop into a more of a spunky go-getter as she is inspired by Ninny's stories about Idgie and Ruth.

Fried Green Tomatoes has the murder story moving it along, but it isn't the main focus. A majority of what happens is women get together, have fun, laugh often, endure one another's sorrows and burdens together, rejoice in their sisterhood and friendship, and learn from one another, becoming better women through their shared experience. It also has a delightful nostalgic feeling of the good old days and growing up in the deep South. We get to see plenty of home style southern cooking which made me pretty hungry while watching it.

The movie is also about nonconformity in an intolerant society. This primarily takes the form of racism in the South. You've seen Whistle Stop before in other movies; it's one of those small Southern towns where decent folk get along fine with the black residents, but racist rednecks are forever driving though in their pickups, waving shotguns around and causing trouble. Stories of the South in the early 1900's simply aren't complete without the Ku Klux Klan rearing it's frightening head. The town of Whistle Stop refuses to conform to societal attitudes towards race in its day. Idgie and Ruth buck the system by leaving Ruth's abusing husband and by Idgie refusing to give into the ladylike expectations of her family.

Fried Green Tomatoes is a sweet, charming movie that is a tribute to women's empowerment and to the power of friendship. I could see it being interpreted as a "chick flick" but I really do think that's a gross oversimplification of the movie. An overused chick flick cliché that is absent from this movie is the presence of an unrealistically perfect man for the young lady characters to swoon over in every scene. Having that would have weakened the movie and probably the relationship these women had with one another. People who have seen the movie before ruined the surprise ending for me. But even when I knew what was going to happen it still threw me for a loop.  I think Fried Green Tomatoes is a good movie and I recommend seeing it. I didn't quite love it enough to buy my own copy, but I expect there are a good many women viewers who would like it enough to get their own copy. Even if you don't feel inspired by its message of friendship, you'll at least be inspired to try fried green tomatoes sometime.

There are plenty of movies that celebrate women and friendship. What are some titles that you have enjoyed?

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Movie Review

Disney started off with a strong with a film franchise that was based on one of their theme park attractions; Pirates of the Caribbean. The trilogy as a whole ended up being pretty weak, At World's End was a bit too far out there. Disney has released a fourth installment to keep the cash cow franchise alive, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) and you know what? It wasn't too bad.

Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) crosses paths with Angelica Teach (Penélope Cruz), a woman from his past and he's not sure if there is still love there, or if she's a ruthless con artist who's using him to find the fabled Fountain of Youth. When she forces him aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge, the ship of the formidable pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane), Jack finds himself on an unexpected adventure in which he doesn't' know who to fear more: Blackbeard or Angelica. En route to find the Fountain of Youth, they discover a Spanish armada as well as Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), Jack's nemesis, hot on their trail. All parties bent on being the first to take advantage of the Fountain of Youth.

I loved the first Pirates movie; Johnny Depp is what made it so good. He was encouraged to improvise. The script basically had what the point of the scene was and  Depp was supposed to fill it in with his own material. That gave the character Jack Sparrow and the whole lot more spontaneity and gave the movie a comical quirkiness that made it so endearing. It ultimately influenced Pirates as a pop culture icon. The second and third movies were fun, but they pushed credibility too far and had a hard and fast script (no improvising here) which wasn't as good as Depp's improvisations. On Stranger Tides brought us back to what made the first movie good, but still had some of the bits that made the second and third movie weak.

Johnny Depp is without a doubt Captain Jack Sparrow. No one else can play that role the way he does. Depp uses improvisation and his signature quirkiness to bring comical spontaneity to On Stranger Tides. He's got some witty lines and hilarious delivery. He says things like, " Captain, I wish to report a mutiny. I can name fingers and point names." and "You know that feeling you get when you're standing in a high place... sudden urge to jump?... I don't have it." If for no other reason, seeing Johnny Depp play Jack Sparrow again makes the movie worth seeing.

As was the case in the third movie, At World's End, there isn't really a good guy to root for. Sure, you want Jack Sparrow to win just because he's so fun, but the movie consists of a few anti-heroes and a whole bunch of bad guys. By the climax of the movie, there are about five different groups convening and they start fighting with one another. They could have realistically taken out at least two of those groups out to simplify everything without actually losing any plot points. The story gets convoluted and hard to follow the closer we get to the end the movie.

Blackbeard was a great villain! He's downright evil. He's at least as nasty as Barbossa was in the first Pirates movie. He's got some great lines, he had a menacing presence, and he is simply someone you don't want to cross.

There was a theme of religious faith and redemption that seemed out of sorts when juxtaposed against the mermaids, voodoo zombies, pirates, and floating water. The Queen Anne's Revenge has a young clergyman on it for some reason and he and Blackbeard are often at odds about the value of faith and whether or not hell is actually something to worry about. While the theme is ultimately put to reasonably good use in terms of character development, I felt the whole religiosity thing was taken a bit lightly. I doubt that even the most devout Christians would find reason to be offended by any of it, it just felt ill-suited for a movie about pirates having a supernatural adventure.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was a fun movie, though not necessarily a good movie. It had lots of fun, but improbable fight scenes, some supernatural action, a few new faces, and some familiar faces from the previous films. Keith Richards even makes another brief appearance as Captain Teague, Jack's father. It's still a bit weak as some of the characters were completely unnecessary and the story gets convoluted later on. It's more of what made the first movie good, and more of what made the other ones not so good. In the end, it's a fun movie that you'll probably only enjoy if you liked the previous movies. It's a renter, but since I already own the first three, I feel obligated to get this one to complete my collection. Holding true to Pirates of the Caribbean tradition, make sure you stick around for the post-credits scene.

Apart from Captain Jack Sparrow, who is your favorite Pirates of the Caribbean character? Comment below, and tell me why!

Sunshine Cleaning Movie Review

I'm kind of a sucker for stories about underdogs and those who strive to make their lives better in spite of circumstances and poor decisions in the past. I'm sure most people do, actually. It gives us a kind of optimism and hope for our lives. Sunshine Cleaning (2008) is one such story that goes about that sort of theme in a unique way; by having the protagonists clean up after dead bodies.

Back in high school, the future looked pretty bright for Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams); not only was she the cheerleading captain, but she was also dating the star quarterback. Flash forward a little over a decade, and Rose is working overtime in hopes of getting her son into a better school. Her sister, Norah (Emily Blunt), is still living at home with their father, Joe (Alan Arkin), a failed salesman whose penchant for jumping into get-rich-quick schemes has left the family without a financial net to fall back on. Rose may be down, but she certainly isn't out, and when she hatches a plan to launch a crime-scene cleanup business, the money starts rolling in. Sure, cleaning up murder scenes and suicide sites may not be the most glamorous job in the world, but death is a fairly profitable business, and as the phone keeps ringing, Rose and Norah finally begin to experience the closeness of sisterhood that has eluded them all these years while also providing their family with true security.

Sunshine Cleaning is a comedy drama that is full of tense emotional states, a somewhat dark comedy, with some all too real life problems. It's more sobering than funny; there is a great deal of death involved in the movie, and it gives full weight to the impact of death without actually showing us grisly crime scenes. The unpleasant subjects of suicide and murder permeates the movie, but we don't actually see anyone die. We see just the crime scenes after the fact, and one incident of a man about to do himself in, but the scene changes before anything graphic can be shown. Even scenes where Rose and Norah are cleaning up the mess aren't really graphic.

It doesn't sound like pleasant movie to watch, but it features some interesting character developments in both women as they remove blood and body fluids and help console the individuals affected by the death of their loved ones. In an excellent scene, Rose is explaining her business to old high school cohorts, it dawns on her what kind of an impact she's having on other people. Rose explains, "We come into people's lives when they have experienced something profound - and sad. And they've lost somebody, you know? And um, the circumstances, they're always different. But that's the same. And we help. In some small way we, um, we help." Sunshine Cleaning is about connecting with people and how that makes all the awful experiences and circumstances in life more bearable. I genuinely love that theme and can relate to it.

Sunshine Cleaning is not without its flaws. It has a considerable "indie film" vibe; as if too much time was spent developing the characters and plot to the point that they somehow feel sterile and without believable imperfections. It also has kind of an run-of-the-mill bitter sweetness that a lot of indie films have; as if carefully measured amounts of sad drama and quirkiness were put into the prescribed "indie film recipe" so to speak.

The best reason to watch Sunshine Cleaning is to see Amy Adams in action. She's an outstanding actress and she does a exceptional job here. Adams sweeps through a wide array of emotions; the character struggles to remain optimistic and enthusiastic while trying to suppress her own self-anger and it makes her character and her role much more interesting. Most everyone did a good job with their acting, but Amy Adams really shines above the rest in this movie.

Sunshine Cleaning was pretty good. I loved the actors; they did a great job. I loved the theme; I thought the quirky way of going about interpersonal connection via a bio hazard removal/cleaning service was highly interesting. There's some profanity in it, but it's usually pertinent to the despair and emotional tension of the scene. I'll bet that if the one sex scene and only a couple of F-bombs had been left out Sunshine Cleaning would have easily had a PG-13 rating. I didn't feel that the few things that gave it a higher rating were all that necessary. I enjoyed the movie for what it was, but I felt that other movies achieved the same themes a little bit better. I doubt I'll bother seeing it again, but if you can tolerate overtly "indie films," it's not a bad selection for an indie-comedy-drama.

If you could have any kind of weird job (regardless of pay) what would it be? I'd probably be an old-timey soda jerk! Comment below and tell me about your odd job!