Mini Reviews for October 28 - November 3, 2019

Spooky movie season has sadly come to a close. Eleven more months of non-spooky entertainment, I suppose.

Movies

Toy Story 4 (2019)
None of the Toy Story sequels ever had a reason to exist, but Toy Story 4 is unique among them in that doesn't ever figure out a convincing way to pretend to need to exist during its runtime. So I guess it's to its credit that it isn't actively bad, given its lack of conviction. It's a collection of reasonably good ideas—Forky, the carnival setting, the Key & Peele-voiced plush prizes, etc.—but most of these simply remain good ideas unto themselves without ever cohering into a thematic whole. To be fair, this was also true of at least Toy Story 3 (I think people tend to forget its kind of wacky second act in the daycare), but the momentum of that movie's existential dread was so powerful that it kind of made everything cleave together by sheer force of will. Toy Story 4, on the other hand, has a much gentler emotional core, teasing out the implications of the final scene of Toy Story 3 by turning toy ownership into a religious/ideological framework by which toys form meaning—something touched on by the other movies but much more centered here. It's never as intense as either of the two previous Toy Story sequels, which is fine, since I like the relative subtlety of the first movie better; but unlike even that first movie, none of the existential concepts become a true backbone for the movie to hang itself on; these themes just exist alongside all the other pieces of the movie as simply "good ideas" that haven't done the work to fit with one another. Toy Story 4 is certainly near the bottom of the Pixar canon, and while it's not quite the studio's weakest or even just the weakest of the sequels, at least Cars 2 has a cohesive emotional core and story structure, ya know? On a completely different note, as weird as it is to say, I think Pixar's CG rendering technology is getting too good; the limitations of the tech in the previous three entries gave their worlds a cartoony look, while Toy Story 4 is as photorealistic as a Pixar movie has ever been outside of the landscapes in The Good Dinosaur, and honestly, it's distracting to a fault how different these characters look from their previous iterations when they have minutely detailed textures and lighting—everything's just so shiny and fuzzy in ways that my brain refuses to acknowledge. The worst is in a flashback of a young Andy, and while I never would have said I had any affection for the dead-eyed animatronic doll that was Andy in the first two movies, the realistically proportioned and textured boy we see in this flashback is almost unrecognizable as the character he's supposed to be, and it's more unsettling than any of the poorly aged CGI of the earlier movies ever was. Take it easy, Pixar. Grade: B-

Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)
Ugh, not another one of these zombie Christmas musical movies—enough is enough, Hollywood! But in all seriousness, it's a pretty good execution of that batty premise. I was never really feeling that connected with the character beats, so when the movie tries for some emotional gravitas toward the end, it doesn't do a lot for me. It's also got some pretty connect-the-dots music—but the lyrics are great. Also great is the cast, who are super charming even though the screenplay never got me that invested in the characters themselves. There are also some of the most fun gore effects I've seen in a zombie movie in a while. The zombie parts of the movie crib maybe a bit too liberally from Shaun of the Dead, but then again, my favorite moment of the film by far is basically a musical reworking of the Shaun gag where he's always improbably looking in just the right direction that he never notices the zombies around him. Good stuff, for the most part. Grade: B

Hocus Pocus (1993)
Finally catching up with this one, I guess. Bette Midler is having a great time, and that's contagious to an extent—which is saying something for me, who usually isn't too entertained by Bette Midler. And there are some kind of fun, old-fashioned effects, which are charming. The rest is pretty drab and mediocre, though. I don't hate anything here, but there's also not a whole lot for me here either. Millennials have terrible taste in their nostalgic favs, so the best I can say (and I am very thankful for this) is that Hocus Pocus at least isn't the worst of those. Grade: C+

Lady Frankenstein (1971)
A boilerplate Frankenstein story, only imagine that Dr. Frankenstein is killed by his monster at the beginning and his daughter decides to enact revenge by taking her aging romantic interest whom she will not have sex with on account of his aging flesh and putting his brain into a younger, more bang-able body that will, in addition to rocking her world, also allow said love interest to kill her father's monster, sating her vengeful spirit. Wild, right? But oh no! The boring boilerplate elements of the story basically overwhelm everything until like the last 30 minutes! Too bad. Grade: C




Books

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (2006)
The way this book combines typical coming-of-age tropes (first crush, new friends, new school, etc.) with a really complex wrestling with ideas like double consciousness is fascinating and compelling, and I love the tri-part storytelling structure, which breaks the novel into one third a realistic narrative about Chinese-American boy's experiences in a mostly white school, one third a pseudo-sitcom involving exaggerated racist tropes, and one third a re-telling of part of Journey to the West. Even before the ending ties all these together, it's not hard to understand how these three are all related thematically, each exploring the nuances of being a minority in a majority-white society. Very good stuff. The ending does end up linking it all—in a device I don't really find convincing, to be honest, and it's super-rushed, to boot. I wonder if the book would have worked better just leaving the connections between the three parts implicit, as I really don't think the book sticks the landing. Which is a shame. Grade: B+

Music

Chance the Rapper - The Big Day (2019)
After several mixtapes that were basically albums by another name, Chance the Rapper finally released what he's calling his debut album, The Big Day. It's sort of a worst-case scenario in some respects, as Chance takes the absolute worst elements of the past couple decades of big-budget mainstream rap albums (77 minutes long! too many features! freakin' skits!) and at the same time loses a lot of the ebullience and sonic personality of his mixtapes. Chance the Rapper has never been boring before, so I guess you could call this a new direction? It's not a total wash, though; people like to make fun of Chance the Rapper for his corniness, but I do think that's an asset here; The Big Day is pretty short on posturing and pretension, which I appreciate—if the most important things in your life are your family, your child, and God, then by golly, sing about that (and he does, a lot). There are also a few tracks that hint at the lush heights of Coloring Book, most notably the closer, "Zanies and Fools," which uses a gospel choir to interpolate "Impossible; It's Possible" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella alongside some pretty strong verses, and it's great. Wish I could say so of the album as a whole. Grade: C+

100 Years...100 Movies 99-100: Toy Story, Ben-Hur

Hello all! I'm working my way through AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list, giving thoughts, analyses, and generally scattered musings on each one. For more details on the project, you can read the introductory post here.

This is it! These are the last two movies on the list, and this is the last post in the project. Not to rush things, but I say we just jump right into these movies. So...

99. Toy Story (1995, John Lasseter)
Otherwise known as the greatest entry in the greatest film trilogy of all time. That's right. I said it. Let's just skip over that big, baiting "greatest trilogy" statement (sorry, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Before..., and Three Colors—you're great and all, but seriously, Toy Story. End of discussion!) and move on to why I feel like this first entry is the best of the three Toy Stories. I love all three, obviously, but what I really appreciate about this movie in particular (setting aside the unprecedented technical feat that it was in '95) is how discretely it handles its thematic resonance. Toy Story manages a neat trick that most other movies fail to pull off: it explores real, philosophical depth without interrupting its own fun, instead using that very fun as the medium of conveying the depth. For a movie about mortality and existential dread, Toy Story is an astonishingly breezy watch. Don't misunderstand me; I adore the emotional weight of 2 and 3, and the trilogy as a whole is better off for it. But there's just something infinitely wonderful about the way that the first Toy Story gets at those very same emotions without a Sarah McLachlan song or a trash-incinerator-as-mortal-abyss scene. Let's face it: for all their good will and humor, 2 and 3 can feel downright heavy at times. Toy Story, on the other hand, isn't. It also avoids the later films' tendencies to underline their own profundity. Toy Story is a movie built on subtext—subtext not alien to its otherwise family-film format but so organically a part of the movie's plot and execution that it doesn't feel like it's there at all. I bring all this up not to fault Toy Story 2 and 3 (I like sad songs and staring into the abyss) but rather to point out how the first one is the movie that leaves its audiences with the most agency in responding to the film. Are you interested in an entertaining adventure movie with vibrant animation and endearing, hilarious characters? Toy Story will let you enjoy it completely on that level. Do you want to analyze how Toy Story is a complex, affecting study of an individual's worth in society, abandonment, the value of community, the terror of invisibility/non-existence, and the effects of technological innovation on the human spirit? You can do that, too. In fact, please do. I'd love to read that essay.

100. Ben-Hur (1959, William Wyler)
Here it is, y'all. The last movie on. this. list. And you know, I like it. I know the early posts in this blog series contained a lot of griping by me about Hollywood epics and the associated bloat. And those complaints still stand. In fact, a lot of those complaints still stand in specific regard to Ben-Hur. It's super long and super self-serious, for one, and, in the grand tradition of many of the worst epics (lookin' at you, Cleopatra), it tries to bolster its own significance by annexing stories and/or historical events central to the Western canon. In Ben-Hur's case, it's none other than the New Testament that gets annexed, and given that text's importance to my life, I'm sure there are all sorts of ways I could pick apart its appropriation in this movie and in the novel it's based on[1]. But... I've never really explored those avenues, and for as big and as messy as it is, I've always had a soft spot for Ben-Hur. For one, theology aside, it's a darn good adventure film, with the brisk pace of deterred justice propelling the narrative. The conflict between Judah and Messala is compellingly drawn, and the action scenes play a nice balance between sheer, enthralling spectacle (that ship battle is pretty dang cool) and emotional stakes (the chariot race, y'all--my goodness). For two, taking up theology again, it's always appealed to me that the grand narrative of this movie is one that points toward redemption and reconciliation, which is something that definitely does square with the general thrust of the New Testament and something that feels meaningful when tackled by the movie. That's more than I can say of a lot of film epics.

And... done! That's a wrap, folks. This project is hereby complete. Many, many thanks to everyone who stopped in to read and comment on Facebook, even if only occasionally. You've all been great and encouraging conversation. This has been a blast of a series for me, and I hope it's been the same for y'all.

I've been kicking around the idea of finishing out this project by posting my own 100 favorite American movies as a sort of response to AFI's list. I've actually made the list already, but as it turns out, my tastes are so boring and canonical that I feel like you might as well just be reading the actual AFI list. Still, if anyone out there is interested, let me know, and I can post my list anyway.

If not, this post will close out the project. It's been a great ride, y'all. Now to write on something other than classic movies for a while...

You can read the previous post, #s 97-98, here.

1] Yeah, I know that this film is technically more of a remake of a 1925 silent film than it is an adaptation of the novel, but since I haven't seen the original, I don't really have a whole lot to say on the value of the '59 flick as a remake. Also, now that I've brought up the novel, I want to give Ben-Hur props for being one of those movies that, in my estimation, definitely improves upon its original book. The book's okay, but it's got only a fraction of the narrative propulsion of the movie. Besides, I mean, c'mon, that chariot race was made to be put in a movie. Well, not literally, since the novel predates motion pictures by some years. But you know what I mean.