Bridesmaids

Written at the time of the film's release...

"The Miss of Sisyphus"

or

"Wiiging Out"

First off, Kristen Wiig is scary. She's scary funny. And scary smart. It's an almost sure thing that she'll be the best thing in whatever she appears in (certainly that was true of MacGruber). She has no Dolby and no squelch in her comedy, the filters are off, and she's not afraid to look like a doofus. In fact, I don't think she's afraid of anything.

And because she co-wrote this and is primarily the focus for the vast majority of Bridesmaids, it is a pretty funny, raunchy comedy of the "incredible mess" variety. And who doesn't want to see a wedding fail (especially if its not yours)? That's the premise behind this film (for better and for worse), and I've been to and/or been involved in enough weddings to know that this could easily have been a documentary.* The various rituals and ceremonies that precede, pre-function and prevaricate the actual hitching of one individual to another, are enough to wreck any marriage before it begins, and I'll frequently pontificate that if you survive the wedding, the marriage just might make it.**
And I've been to one wedding where in the course of the pre-functions, the Maid of Honor was replaced in the Bride's affections by another friend, as happens here. It happens.

Said Maid of Honor, who by herself is an "Incredible Mess," is Annie (Wiig), who has zero self-esteem, is dating a self-absorbed creep (naturally, as he's a man, played by an un-credited Jon Hamm—who, bless him, seems to be having fun)—except it's not really dating so much as an empty sexual convenience, she's lost her specialty bakery business, and is working at a jewelry store, where her tirades about the impermanence of all relationships has a tendency to drive the customers away. Her mother (Jill Clayburgh—her last role before she died of cancer) wants her to move in with her "before she hits rock-bottom," because her room-mates are British and creepy. At least she has her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph), who is always good for a meltdown de-briefing.

That is, until Lillian announces her engagement and asks Annie to be the M of H.  Then, like a black hole, the downward spiral that is Annie's life starts to suck in the wedding arrangements, as well. She gets together the other bridesmaids: Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey), a bitter wife with two problematic kids; Becca (Ellie Kemper) a chirpy newlywed; Megan (Melissa McCarthy—hilarious and fearless), the groom's sister; and Helen (Rose Byrne), a trophy-wife, who is needy, tries too hard, and is aggressively perfect. This eclectic gaggle of women are tough to corral and all approach life and their duties to the bride-to-be differently, leaving the slightly scattered Annie dishonored and in their wake of agendas. In her desperate attempt to get them all on the same page (or even in the same dress-style), she only makes things worse, especially for herself.

The only non-crumbling structure in the whole disaster area that is her life is a state patrol trooper (Chris O'Dowd—think the looks of Tim Allen, the charm of Judge Reinhold, and the accent of Craig Ferguson) but that gets doused as well. Pretty soon, rock-bottom seems like a pretty stable place to be, as she loses everything, even an invitation to the wedding.

This would be intolerably sad, if the cast and writers didn't make it so hellaciously funny, in a surprising, raunchy manner that rains humiliation down on everyone, the highlight (possibly) being the visit to a posh, expensive bridal shop after a dysentery-inducing exotic pre-function. It's cruel...like watching a train-wreck, where all the passengers were caught in the bathroom, but it is funny—humor, one must caution, being subjective.

I'd be heartily recommending this movie*** if it didn't go all-"Oprah" in the last section, with a tone-scrambling heart-felt ending that one is just not prepared for, and it also coasts on my most hated of rom-com tropes—"all she needs is a good man. Really? I'd've said a good psychotherapist.

But, until that time, Bridesmaids is the most snortingly funny disaster movie I've seen in a long time.

* I just had a two-hour conversation with someone who participated in a recent June wedding, where everything went flawlessly, but the backstage story was an on-going apocalyptic disaster from start to finish.

** That's an incredibly sunny view, considering I've been married twice.  On the other hand, there was one wedding I went to where the bride and groom were already arguing...at the altar.  The reception was dominated by placing wagers on how long it would last.

*** And have, to two gals who wanted a movie-night and were, understandably, less-than-thrilled with the current movie selection.  They couldn't be two more different people.  Both loved it.

X-Men: First Class

Written at the time of the film's release... 

 

"The X Factor"

or

"Don't 'X,' Don't Tell"

Movies from Marvel Studios seem to be running the pattern of "Star Trek" movies (at least in my eyes), the "even"-numbered ones tend to be best, while the "odd"-numbered ones are a little clunky.* That's certainly the case with the "X-Men" franchise. Bryan Singer's first film did a lot of heavy lifting adapting the comic to the screen, but there was a virulent strain of exposition, and some jostled positioning of the characters in what is essentially an action soap opera.  The best thing about it was its casting, but its big confrontation was poorly done.  X-II, also  directed by Singer, with all the introductions out of the way, concentrated on story and moved along smoothly with an emotional end-point that seemed to matter. Singer left to complicate the "Superman" movies, and left X-III in the hands of Brett Ratner, who produced a very expensive film that looked cheap, felt cheap and really screwed up the X-Men line-up. Ratner was required to use an expensive cast which ate up a lot of the film's budget, and the results on-screen suffered, despite the audience familiarity of the stars. There really didn't seem to be anywhere for another film to go, without some heavy gene-splicing of the cast.

So, here's the fourth "X-Men" Movie (we won't talk about X-Men Origins: Wolverine—we already have) X-Men: First Class, a sort of re-boot of the series, although keeping elements from the original films that everybody seems to like.  They could have easily made it an "X-Men Origins" film.  It starts where the first film began—at a concentration camp in Poland as Erik Lensherr (here Bill Milner, but he'll grow up to be Michael Fassbender**) watches helplessly (for the moment) as his parents are imprisoned in a concentration camp.***  The parallel story is of young Charles Xavier (Laurence Belcher, then James McAvoy ) who finds a metamorph in his kitchen (Morgan Lily, but she'll be played as a young adult by the ubiquitous Jennifer Lawrence), whom, recognizing a fellow mutant-traveler, he takes in as a sister.  Their lives progress and Lensherr, who has developed powers over metal, hunts down the Nazis (particularly Kevin Bacon) who killed his parents and tortured him, while Xavier attends Oxford with his "sister" Raven, achieving top honors—and why wouldn't he, as he can read minds and project thoughts. 

What is nice about X-Men: First Class is it takes real-world events of the time that Lee and Kirby were creating the series in the early 1960's—in this case, the nuclear gamesmanship of 1962 when the U.S. planted missiles in Turkey, which was then challenged by the Russians planting nukes in Cuba, thus lighting the match for the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of that year, which came within a sub-crew's breath of a nuclear X-change between the two very real "super-powers."  Singer is credited with the story, and however counter-intuitive it might have been to place it there (and it does create a couple of continuity errors), it "works" and works gang-busters.  With Singer's story and the direction of Matthew Vaughn (getting stronger and stronger with each movie), it feels more like a 60's groovy spy story than your standard super-hero fare, and for once—save for a poignant moment in X-II—the consequences of the plot really seem to matter.

Those familiar with the "X-Men" comics will know of "The Hellfire Club"**** and it turns out that organization of nefariousness and debauchery fits in well with the swinging '60's.  Led by Sebastian Shaw (Bacon), with henchmen Azazel (Jason Flemyng), Riptide (Álex González) and Emma Frost (January Jones), they've pulled the mental strings of military puppets on both sides to set up the nuclear stand-off, and as Shaw absorbs energy, a nuclear holocaust wouldn't kill him, it would only make him stronger.

Banding together with the CIA, (uneasily, except for agent Moira McTaggert—Rose Byrne and another played by Oliver Platt), Xavier joins forces with Lensherr, in classic "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" style, and begin recruiting other mutants to form a secret society of operatives hiding in the shadows to do undercover work against the Hellfire Club. Pretty soon, things become dire enough that they must come out of the cold and overtly take a stand, certainly taking their place among "the best and the brightest."

It's your classic "oppressed minority" story (something Lee and Kirby knew all too well when they were doing the comics—both were Jews, which was common among the pioneers of the creators of the superhero comics genre), but during the 60's it was a civil rights metaphor that only became more overt as the years went on.  Singer pitched his initial The X-Men concept as a "meeting between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X," but it was more than that; Singer gave it a "hiding in plain sight" slant towards gay rights that involved not only opposition to the mutants but out-right hysteria (something the scenario buys into with the "recruitment" angle, long a charge of anti-gay paranoia).

So, you have a superhero flick that acknowledges its comics roots by employing a style from the movies of its origin's time-frame, with a rather clear-eyed look at a real-life crisis (mutants weren't involved, although I've always had my suspicions about Robert McNamara), some nice performances, grand-standing direction, good action set-pieces, and a few nice surprises for fans of both the comics and the previous films.  X-Men: First Class manages to be more than the sum of its parts, certainly the best of the series and among the best of the genre, thanks to its scope and style and its own undefinable, uncanny "X"-factor.

The First "X-Men" comic (from 1963)

* Iron Man being an exception.

** Fassbender is terrific, playing contained rage and menace throughout, but when he lets go with the emotional histrionics, there is just enough control to it to make you worry what would happen if he "really" let go.

*** They even use Michael Kamen's music from the first film in the scene.

**** Although writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne cite "A Touch of Brimstone"—a controversial episode of the British TV series "The Avengers" (and it's important to make that distinction with Marvel)—there's been a long history of actual Hellfire Clubs. 

Knowing

Knowing (Alex Proyas, 2009) The director's last film was the "in-name-only" bastardization of Isaac Asimov's "I, Robot," with its rule-breaking chrome figure-models that couldn't take apart a car convincingly. The movie benefited from Proyas' dark imagery and sense of imagination, but in the end it was another sci-fi film that finished with a fist-fight among the art direction. How....uh, "retro." The best thing about it was it gives somebody another chance to do Asimov right.

One walks in to Knowing, with the same kind of dread—another apocalypse movie, oh joy—only to come away impressed. More than that, you come away thinking thoughts that maybe Proyas knows science fiction better than most film-makers today, because Knowing does what really good science fiction does—show us an aspect of "now" that we don't consider and "us" that we finally recognize.

Forget the details, it's all hooey. They're just levels of Hell in Proyas' "Inferno," a means for John Koestler, college professor (Nicolas Cage) to drop the "Doubting Thomas" act, and "find religion." He's a man of science, after all, and doesn't believe in pre-determination...unless, of course, he unlocks, scientifically, the battle plan himself. Then, he believes, Lawd A'mighty.

But, once he reaches his cross-roads (and Proyas points it out with all the subtlety of a pick-up truck) that's when the certainty arrives and the movie reveals itself to be something different: a metaphor for Death.

And that's where the title comes in: we go through out lives sure of our mortality, and aware of the clock ticking in our chest, but we ignore it—we don't face it. It's penciled into the Day-Planner like that trip to France, but we never firm it up, we just delay it a day at a time. Some day, not today. Manana. There's no "drop-dead" deadline.

Until there is. And then, you have to face it and walk the Kubler-Ross steps, knowing (knowing) time's a-wastin.' And the priorities and everyday details knock over like those endless arrangements of dominoes, revealing what needs to be done right here, right now. You can rant, you can rave, you can find God (Hint: He's always the last place you look), you can put your affairs in order, have your last meal and cigarette and say your good-byes at the door. That's just all delaying the inevitable.

But the first thing is, it's all out of your hands.

This isn't about "you." It's about what "you" leave.

And that's what knowing (and "knowledge" is what the word "science" means) and Knowing is all about. There's a reason Roger Ebert was the one critic in the country who didn't just dismiss this movie. He's been to the cross-roads. He's on the other side, waving and smiling at us.

And laughing.

That's the thing about smarter people. They're so "elitist."

Sunshine (2007)

Written at the time of the film's release.

"...They went at night."

Our sun is dying. Mankind faces extinction. Seven years ago the Icarus project sent a mission to restart the sun but that mission was lost before it reached the star. Sixteen months ago, I, Robert Capa, and a crew of seven left earth frozen in a solar winter. Our payload a stellar bomb with a mass equivalent to Manhattan Island. Our purpose to create a star within a star. Eight astronauts strapped to the back of a bomb. My bomb. 

Sunshine is Danny Boyle's homage to 2001* while serving up an environmental metaphor in a sci-fi setting, a dissertation on the uses of faith, while also landing in the "Incredible Mess" subcategory of films.

It goes like this: Our sun (as they say) is dying. Seven years ago, the spaceship "Icarus I" headed out for the sun to drop a payload the "mass" of Manhattan Island to re-ignite it and stop the new Ice Age developing on Earth. The ship disappeared mysteriously, and so, "Icarus II" was launched, same mission, same payload. You'd think with the luck they had with the first one, they wouldn't name the second ship the same thing. Plus, if you're going to the sun, "Icarus" might not be the most inspiring legend to name your ship after.**

Be that as it may, the ship is as "green" as can be, with its own eco-system/garden (overseen by Michelle Yeoh) providing oxygen for the ship. But it wouldn't be much of a space drama if things went smoothly, now, would it? And before you can radio "Houston, we've got a problem," people get hot under the helmet-collar and things start to come apart faster than an "O" ring on a chilly day. The ship's shrink may be getting a bit too much sun. The "payload expert" (Cillian Murphy) and systems engineer (Chris Evans) are not getting along in what the pilot (Rose Byrne) calls "an excess of manhood breaking out in the com-center," and a slight miscalculation by the navigator creates a series of unfortunate events, and turns him suicidal.

Geez, folks, go outside. Get some sun.

Danny Boyle can be counted on to breathe new oxygen into any genre, like Trainspotting for the "kitchen-sink" film, 28 Days Later for the "zombie" movie, but Sunshine has so many echoes of Kubrick's 2001 right down to color schemes, ship designs, POV shots, "Icarus's" somewhat fussy computer behavior, freeze-frames in vague situations and close-up eye shots that A Space Odyssey is never too far from his frame (Murphy even has a slight resemblance to Keir Dullea). 

The dynamic of the crew is right out of Scott's Alien, and the denouement is subject to interpretation (after the "multiple endings" debacle of 28 Days Later). One also suspects that to secure a rating, or due to some preview-audience's expressed discomfort, some make-up effects have been toned down to near-imperceptibility. But, by and large, its a fascinating exercise in a genre that, if it asks too much of a leap of faith from its audience, can become laughable. Sunshine is far from that. It's always a little bit exhilarating to see a sci-film that obeys the laws of orbital mechanics, knows the dangers of space-travel (where math can be fatal), and doesn't have one ray-gun.

Best to see it on a big screen, though, as it's full of little details that won't translate on video.

* in fact, it's a bit scary how many little ties to 2001 there are. Why, you'll even see a black monolith or three in this film.

** In his acceptance of the D.W. Griffith Award from the Director's Guild in 1999 Kubrick evoked the Icarus story to talk about D.W. Griffith's rise and fall in the film business. "I always felt the message of the 'Icarus' story wasn't "Don't fly too high," but, rather, "Do a better job on the wax and feathers!" You can see that speech here.

X-Men: Apocalypse

Deus X Menschina 
or
Apocalypse Then and Now (I Am Third)

At one point in X-Men: Apocalypse,* young mutants Scott Summers, Jean Grey, and Kurt Wagner are seen out doing "teen" things and are coming out of a theater showing Return of the Jedi. Jean Grey has the line "Let's all just agree that the third film in a trilogy is always the worst."

Cute line. Very meta. The third of the X-Men films—the one not directed by Bryan Singer (who directs this one) was indeed the worst film of the series. That line made me laugh, but I also thought it was a bit snarky. And premature. And a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The problem is when you point out something's flaws most of the fingers are pointing back at you, even if your mutant hand only has three fingers.

After all, this is the third film in this current incarnation of the X-Men franchise (2.0 on this one) and although we might not all agree, it is the worst film of this trilogy.

Not that it's bad or incompetent. Director Bryan Singer has done four of the six films and is quite gifted (he keeps coming back to the X-Men franchise because his ambitious, non-genre films don't quite do the business)—in fact, he's so talented that he's managed to do so many of the films of this franchise without seeming to go stale. Of course, he's helped by the voluminous story-lines and characters of Marvel's diverse Mutant-line, and that, after just three films, the series went through its first re-boot, going back to the past to mine history stories of the characters already established in the first X-Men film back at the turn of the century.

Magneto's mad at mankind again. Jeez......He's like an old man with a property line.

The break-out star of that film was Hugh Jackman, who caught a lucky break when he was cast last-minute to replace Dougray Scott, who couldn't get out of his Mission: Impossible II schedule (John Woo was running a bit late). The series then turned into "Wolverine and Some X-Men" and the swarthy, schnikting Canadian went on to his own (muddled) film series, with returns to his adamantium roots.

And because you can't make an X-Man movie without Hugh Jackman...

It fell to director Matthew Vaughn to re-invent and recast the "X-Men" films with the well-done X-Men: First Class film, which showed you could make an interesting X-Men film without Wolverine, which allowed Singer to come pack to the franchise and bridge the new X-Men with a final bow from the old cast and move forward with tales of the "lost years" of the group before its 2000 debut. The series now serves the function of filling in the holes of the group's history puzzle, the cinematic equivalent of putty.

Havoc gets something off his chest

Given that, there's not much the series can do, and so the latest presents an "Untold Tale of the X-Men" digging up a story of the original mutant from Egyptian times, a priest (Oscar Isaac), known as Apocalypse, with four mutant acolytes, who has found a way to transfer his life energy into a new host to become, for all purposes, immortal. At the point of transfer, he is buried in his temple (at the machinations of some rebellious Nile-lists) and imprisoned for hundreds of years (despite the powers he supposedly possesses) until he is released during the Reagan years to try to re-establish his world-wide rule.  Lucky for him, such a being as Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) exists that he might be able to achieve mental control over the entire human populace.

You can tell the bad guys from the good guys in the X-Men movies by a simple visual representation:
The bad guys make dramatic entrances with low camera angles
The good guys just sort of amble on-set.

His first step is to establish his "four horsemen" which he does by accentuating the powers of mutants Angel (Ben Hardy), Ororo (or as she's called "Storm," now played by Alexandra Shipp), Psylocke (Olivia Munn), and Magneto (Michael Fassbender), who is once again polarized against mankind for one more crime against him. Magneto seems to attract bad human behavior as well as metal.

"Meanwhile," back at Xavier's School for Gifted (and Callowly Attractive) Students, they're picking up new recruits: Havoc (Lucas Till) brings in his brother Scott (Tye Sheridan) who has begun to shoot destructo-beams from his eyes (you know those teenage hormones); Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) has rescued a fellow blue mutant named Kurt Wagner (Kodi Smit McPhee), Nightcrawler, a devil-tailed transporter (*BAMF!*) from a German mutant fight-club; Quicksilver (Evan Peters)—who must have grown into the Russian accent he had in Age of Ultron—runs in just in time to have an extended super-speed demonstration when the School is attacked (again—"once every two years" as they said in Deadpool).

And then there's little Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), the Princess Elsa of the X-Men (who seems to be preparing to star in a Disney musical called "Flamin'"), who is reluctant to give full throttle to her powers (and since they're bringing it up, you know that it won't be long before she lets "it" go). When Xavier is abducted from the School (Hey! Ally Sheedy teaches there! Where's Judd Nelson?) by Apocalypse (after hacking into his brain to launch all of Earth's nuclear missiles into space—Hey, thanks, Apocalypse!), he is transported to Cairo, while the Egyptian King uses Havoc to destroy the X-Mansion—cue Quicksilver for the rescue.

While the students are standing around moping about the school being destroyed, not thinking about how they're super-powered so they might (ya know), clear some debris, then eventually make a trip to Home Depot to buy some cement for a foundation or something (even an impromptu frisbee game might be appropriate instead of just hanging around doing nothing..."mutant kids these days"), Col. William Stryker shows up in a Huey and kidnaps (let's see) Beast, Raven, Quicksilver...and non mutant CIA agent Moira McTaggart (Rose Byrne), either because he knows of them, or they're the ones who seem to have the least lethargy of the mutant lawn ornaments. Cyclops, Phoenix, and Nightcrawler go off in hot pursuit (*BAMF!*)

"Meanwhile," back in Egypt, Magneto is convinced to start building Apoc's city and temple from all the metal building materials in the world, causing world-wide destruction (evidently Singer didn't get the memo about extensive casualties in super-hero movies and to stage these things AWAY from civilization!). Once his temple is constructed, he intends to take over Xavier's body in order to be able to have control over EVERY MUTANT IN THE WORLD...In the world...in the world.

To what end is hard to fathom besides absolute power for absolute power's sake...(not unlike the current presidential campaign). But, Apoc's determined to do it, and so once the Phoenix/Cyclops/Nightcrawler team rescue the Mystique/Beast/Quicksilver/CIA gal team from Stryker—and prompt a Wolverine cameo by releasing Weapon X from Stryker's mutant experimentation facility (check off the X-Men Origin: Wolverine gap from Singer's list**), all the X-ers go to Egypt to have the final showdown so they can end the movie, while the countdown ticks as Apocalypse does his "katra" transference to Professor Xavier—a process that is so elaborate and time-consuming that it provides that much more time for it to stop.

Can't we just throw a SWITCH or something?

The fight is pretty perfunctory, mutie e mutie, where folks get dirty, but that's about it, so you can be assured that the next movie will be just as crowded (especially considering that the contracts for Lawrence, Fassbender and McAvoy are up with this film). Opponents are paired up, without much cross-fighting, ala Civil War, so this movie has the appearance of being behind the curve despite it being in production simultaneously—it's just that the Roussos decided they'd do everything CGI rather than green-screen like Singer does...probably because they were more interested in a really cool battle royale than identifying the participants.

The Apocalypse group all make big dramatic entrances, and the rookies have to find their courage, which they do the closer the near-misses come, and, as these things go, they find that they are most effective if they put their differences aside and work together, but they have to be convinced to do that (like they do every movie). This is usually where the X-Men movies cheat a bit by making the motivations as simple as "you don't HAVE to do this..." (the conversation I usually have with myself before going to an X-Men movie). The transitions are a little quick and convenient, but when you've got people who have mental powers, I guess it's a bit easier. Evidently Professor X wanted me to spend my money. Jerk.

Dramatic entrance: check

The thing is the film is really hollow. There's lots of sturm and drang, but very little of consequence that doesn't involve property damage happens—we're spared seeing the casualties of all that metal extraction (which, although it gets repetitive and numbing to see, not to mention a bit of a cheat) to the point where you think that world is absent of anybody but X-Men. The biggest result of all of this is a new X-team is configured and Professor X loses his hair. Not sure a multi-million dollar movie was needed to mark that event (although I can't remember the last time I saw a movie about male pattern baldness).

Dramatic entrance: check

The most frustrating thing about X-Men: Apocalypse is its seemingly incomprehensible sense of loyalties. In the Marvel Mutant Universe, you are either an activist or a commingler, a radical or an appeaser, Malcolm X or Martin Luther King. Professor X is always among the latters, but the more radical types like Magneto and Mystique are the agitators, until such times, that is, as the movie-makers deem them to be hypocritically antithetical. Convenient to do so, I'm sure, but it sure makes those characters look like flakes, or at the least weak-willed flip-floppers. 

ZAP! "Missed"
ZOTZ! "Missed."

You don't need mutant genes to do that. Heck, that trait is all too human. And I'm sure the convictions will stick as long as the writer-directors aren't in some sort of creative jam. They appear to be in one now, as X-Men: Apocalypse fulfills its own critique of being the worst of its trilogy.

 

* Although I've taken to calling it "X-Men: Isaacalypse."

** Wait, wait, wait...Professor X appeared in that film and he looked like Patrick Stewart. Now, at the same point in time, he looks like James McAvoy. There's a discrepancy in the continuity cameo continuum.