The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

Written at the time of the film's appearance in a puff of smoke...and featuring a small, but perfectly played part by Alan Arkin, who (contrary to recently published reports) I believe to be immortal.

"Sometimes the Magic Works...."

or

Wanna See it Again? No?

Repetition, repetition, repetition. It is the secret to prestidigitation. Do it over and over and over again, honing the skill, making it more fluid, perfecting the illusion, increasing the speed, so you leave the audience dazzled by the pixie dust of distraction. Then, once perfected, you do it again and again and again in performance, producing a jaded hardening of the artistry, the audience becoming a revolving series of marks you hit over and over again. You lose respect of the audience and the skills and the gig. The magic goes away.

Repetition is the key to The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, too. One of its major themes is the drudgery of performing the same tricks over and over and over again, a process that turns the titular magician (Steve Carell) into a zombie with a spray-tan, barely able to speak to his partner Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi) as they perform the umpteenth repetition of their standard Vegas act.  Not even the addition of a new assistant, Jane (Olivia Wilde) can stop the ennui, as the self-absorbed Wonderstone keeps calling her "Nicole" for some reason. Probably because he can, she looks more like a "Nicole" than a "Jane," and he doesn't care. At all. So, he always calls her "Nicole." "Jane" she immediately corrects, but he doesn't get it.

Repetition is also the key to Burt Wonderstone's comedy. They throw out that "Nicole"/"Jane" joke a half-dozen times throughout the movie, and a good many others, too, usually to expose the shallowness and perpetual myopia of the characters as well as the flatness of their learning curves.

That flatness, that lethargy or lack of magic, is the starting point of the character arcs. Burt is at the top of his game, successful, bored, settled into the day-to-day—the romantic encounters he engineers (if you can call them romantic) are one-night stands he pulls from the audience, provides a quick tour of his pad, a complimentary memento arranged for the evening, the signing of a non-disclosure agreement, and it all ends when he pulls a disappearing act. Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Except the magic. It left a long time ago. 

Burt (Carell) and Anton (Buscemi)—"Pure Magic"

Because success isn't very funny, Burt and Anton stagnate, especially when there are newer, edgier, geekier magicians with reality shows—like the masochistic, egotistic Steve Gray (Jim Carrey) who bills himself as "the brain rapist." The owner of Bally's (James Gandolfini), where the two have performed to sell-out crowds for years, sees the attendance softening, and demands something more "street" than his regulars can provide, and so they get canned, split up, try to rebuild, crack up, and then the story can actually begin. 

As typical romantic comedies go, this one is by the numbers: Burt's career set-back is completely unprepared for, and he finds that without the safety net of Anton, and the routine of their act, that he can't start over, or reclaim his former glory, so before long he finds himself sinking to rock bottom (performing magic at an old folks home), where, by the prestidigitation of convenient screen-writing, he finds his magic mojo again in the form of Rance Holloway (Alan Arkin), mentor and Obi-Wan Kenobi-figure who critiques Burt's work and attitude ("What, magic makes you feel 80 again?" cracks Burt).

Anybody knows, if they've taken a screenwriting class, or seen any Tom Cruise movie from the '70's-'80's knows how it will run in its course (success kills your soul, there's a rival/villain, and one must have a sage elder to find the proper path), but at least the thing maintains an entertainment value throughout and right up to the end.  Thanks to the mixture of the personalities—Carell, Buscemi, Wilde, Arkin (I'll see anything with him in it), and especially Carrey, who makes the most of his small screen-time—there's always a sprinkling of surprise, a detail, a quirk to appreciate among the over-arching familiarity of it. There's something magical about that.

Underdog

Underdog (Frederik Du Chau, 2007) Cute little adaptation of the humorous (which is the polite word when something is not funny) cartoon show of the 60's that featured Wally Cox as the voice of the anthropomorphic pooch, "Shoeshine Boy," who becomes the crusading canine of courage whenever Society is threatened by the Forces of Evil--personified by the mad scientist Simon Bar Sinister. "Underdog" was limited animation of the "Rocky and Bullwinkle" codec, and one would have mistaken "U-dog" as a Jay Ward Production if it had managed to produce even a half-hearted chuckle or two.

As it is the film struggles mightily to work as a live action quickie--the effects work starting with Babe and continuing on with every talking animal movie since probably convinced the producers to not go the expensive CGI animation route. Plus, they'd miss another opportunity to star Jim Belushi in a lackluster movie. I kid, but actually...okay, I don't like Jim Belushi. But casting is not the film's problem. As the designated audience surrogate Alex Neuberger isn't all that bad--he does have to play most of his scenes with a dog (that, hate to break it to you, isn't really talking), but there is much joy to be had in the way the villains have been cast. As Simon Bar Sinister, Peter Dinklage gets to show off his comedy chops, and given that his sidekick is played by the dry as dust Patrick Warburton, one begins to pine whenever this mutt-and-jeff act is not on-screen.

Along the way, the filmmakers do some nice little parodies of Superman's greatest hits--scaring a cat-burglar off his suction cups, taking a flight among the stars with his favorite bitch (look, sorry, it's accurate), and because it's Disney, even throw in a plug for Lady and the Tramp. With Jason Lee providing U-Dog's voice and the ubiquitous Amy Adams as gal-pal Polly, it's pretty good for a talking dog movie, and quite good for a flying, talking dog movie.

As anything else...well, there's a need to fear.

 

Ratatouille

Written with an uncharacteristic gob-smacked brevity, at the time of the film's release.

"Eet's so, how do you say...Meekey Mouse."*

Brad Bird may be the natural heir to the Warner Brothers group. His "Family Dog" segment was one of the few good projects created from Spielberg's "Amazing Stories," (and one of the few that broke the mold of the rather atrophied premise, as well). His The Iron Giant is one of the few cell-animation projects of the last twenty years that can genuinely be called a classic despite not having any songs, or being Disney.

When he signed on with Pixar, one worried that his odd sensibility, but impeccable story sense would fit in or get homogenized. Thankfully, his The Incredibles proved to be a winner, and completely went against the S.O.P. of the studio, creating photo-realistic backgrounds for characters who are clearly designed to be cartoon characters. Some folks quibbled that Bird might be saying something about the privileged when his superheroes were forced to suppress their powers, but that's from the crowd that hasn't read a comic in the last thirty years (or an "X-men" comic in the last forty).

Now, along comes Ratatouille, and it benefits from the advancements in digital production and rendering since The Incredibles, for if anything the backgrounds are even more sophisticated and have the feel of being filmed, while the characters are complete flights of Bird's fancy and design sense. Plus, the movements are far more complicated and fluid, the expressions more minute, and the comic timing (a lot of which is owed to Jerry Lewis) is crack. If you want to see the future of animation and how it can be driven to its full application and imagination, Ratatouille is the place to look. And one can only hope that Pixar continues in its tradition of bringing in new story-tellers in animation to stretch their capabilities for years to come (and the short that comes with it, 

Lifted written and directed by former sound designer Gary Rydstrom, is a perfect example of the possibilities**). If everything is run through the John Lasseter filter, the company could lose its potential and grow stale, but films like Ratatouille will keep it at the top of its game and the advancement of the medium for years to come.

2016 Addendum: I unearth this from the DVD pile every so often just to take a look at it to see if, after all the years and Pixar movies and technical advancements, this still holds up. It does. And not because of the animation, which hedged its bet with bipeds by going "full cartoon" with them and away from naturalism—a good choice that seems to have been adapted by every other animation studio working in three dimensions. Water depiction has improved and Nature looks natural now in Pixar movies, for which landscape artists must all applaud.

But it's not the rendering that makes a movie—rendering is important with meat. It is story and story-telling where Pixar has always excelled (with exceptions you could count on a Disneyfied one-digitless hand). Begun by director Jan Pinkava (who directed the Pixar short Geri's Game), Ratatouile ran into story development trouble and Brad Bird, fresh off The Incredibles took over supervision of the film, re-writing parts of it, and doing extensive research in Paris and in cooking classes.

Remy combining tastes with a visual representation not unlike
Disney's experimentations with jazz.

 

The result is a movie awash in good ideas emanating with a rat named Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt) who wants something more in life than to eat garbage—a rat with good taste. He develops the dream that someday he might be able to become a great chef, which, given rats aversions to kitchens and health inspectors' aversions to rats, is an impossible dream. 

But, with the spirited inspiration of the late populist Chef Gusteau (voiced by Brad Garrett) and the opportune presence and cooperation of Gusteau's bastard child Linguini (Lou Romano) in the Gusteau's Restaurant kitchen, the little rat is given the opportunity to shine, a move that brings new interest in the restaurant, as long as the identity of the "little chef" is not found out. 

The various forms of staff at Gusteau's

There is plenty of opportunity for action of a "scurrying" variety, to keep the kids from fidgeting, but I found the characters and the dedication to concept of aspiring to be something more to be a warming theme—plus, I'll like any movie that tries to tickle one of the other senses besides sight or sound, in this case taste. Bird does some attempts at visualization to communicate the concept of taste, which I found charming, and more than a little reminiscent of the way Disney animators tried to be-bop their animation when it came to explaining jazz. That and an amazing visual representation of "comfort food" which immediately flashed the concept from screen to mind.

But, my favorite thing is its sublime ending, which, as a critic (or more appropriately, a person who appreciates such things) I found extraordinarily well-articulated and with its constantly seeking heart in the exact right place. I so impressed me that a truncated version of that monologue (beautifully played by Peter O'Toole) has a permanent place at the bottom of this blog page. It will always be there.

There have been so many great Pixar movies that continue to astonish and entertain (last year's Inside Out blew me away), but I still think Ratatouille is my personal favorite.

* A French person's reply to being asked about Euro-Disney. Apt.

** The really nifty thing about "Lifted" is that it very obviously comes from a Sound-Mixer's personality. I could relate.