Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

I'm getting really sick and tired of all this crap. I'm getting so weary of never liking anything I'm supposed to think is amazing, that everyone tells me is amazing, that the consciousness says is amazing, and that the Academy Awards decides is amazing. I'm sick of it. I'm done, son. This was the last straw. From now on I don't care what the Tomatometer says - if it's rated at 90% or above, I'm just going to go ahead and assume it's not going to be very good.

What else am I supposed to think when a boring piece of clap-trap like "Zero Dark Thirty" gets a 93% while awesome movies like "The Last Stand" got a measly 59%,  "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" got 65%, and "Django Unchained," one of the best movies I've seen in years, is at an 88%?

Are you kidding me with this? Really, everyone? "Zero Dark Thirty" was rated better than "Django Unchained?" I'm not saying an 88% is something to be scoffed at, but was the fact that Quentin Tarantino makes enjoyable films such a turn-off to some of you? Or were you all so shaken in your ultra-PC, easily offended little bubbles by the dreaded "n-word" being used? Maybe you could explain why you called black dudes getting tortured in "Django" to be "in poor taste" whilst calling an Arab dude getting tortured in "Zero Dark Thirty" to be "provocative" and "powerful?"

Isn't it interesting where the line is drawn?

ZD30 is a plodding, self-fellatiating exercise in testing the limits of how far the audience is willing to blindly accept the notion that everything Kathryn Bigelow makes is fantastic, simply because that's what they've been told. All it has going for it is the fact that it's about terrorism, it shows waterboarding, and it attempts to paint both sides with multiple shades of grey. But the terrorism aspect is barely seen, the waterboarding lasts about a minute, and while it tries to be morally ambiguous it's clearly just as much American chest-thumping as any random Michael Bay movie is. Oh, and it's over two and a half hours. Because that was necessary.

Am I saying that "Zero Dark Thirty" is a bad film or that Kathryn Bigelow is a bad director? Well no, it's not techincally a "bad film," I am saying that it's boring and that she's severely overrated. Take that for what it's worth, and if you enjoyed this or "The Hurt Locker," then by all means don't allow me to detract from the entertainment you get from either film, since you're clearly in the camp that finds her work sublime. I just think you're all nuts because I found both films to be insufferable.

I could attempt to describe the plot of ZD30, but honestly I started blanking out pretty early on in the film in terms of what I was seeing and what anybody was talking about. I happen to be in luck, though, since the film is extraordinarily easy to sum up, because all that essentially happens is that:

1) Jessica Chastain works for the CIA. She wants to get Osama bin Laden.

2) They interrogate a metric crap-ton of Arab gentlemen in order to find bin Laden.

3) They find bin Laden. They shoot him in the face. Jessica Chastain has nothing to say. The End.

"Man, you guys. I sure am glad we're only in the last 20% of the movie, and that the previous 80% is talking. Otherwise that might have been exciting or something."

All that takes over two and a half hours. And despite its simplicity, throughout the entire affair I had little to no idea what was going on. The endless conversations which make up a vast amount of the run-time almost instantly devolve into a never-ending cycle of Arabic names that sound utterly alien to my ears, therefore making the connections impossible to follow. This of course is a problem since the whole point of the movie is to follow Jessica Chastain on her investigation, uncovering threads as they are revealed.

But how am I supposed to understand any of it when it's just a swirling cloud of names that all sound like "Abdul Al-Aldebwah," all connected to angry looking bearded men that all look identical to each other in their black and white surveillance camera mugshots, which is usually the only time we see their faces since we never actually meet any of them? I have no idea who any of these people are. And that's not limited to Arab people, either. I didn't even know who in the blue hell any of the Americans were. There were roughly 5 American characters in this movie who all looked alike, again, under their beards. These characters also acted nearly identically and liked to drift in and out of the film so often that I had no idea who I was looking at half the time.

 Ah yes. My three favorite characters: Beard, Beardy and um...Beard.

The film does such a poor job with clearly identifying characters that it dissolves into a mess of "Well that Arab dude wasn't helpful. Hey Random Bearded American #3, there's another Arab dude. Let's ask him. Oh good. That info might be useful. Make sure to tell Random Bearded American #2. Jessica, could you please stop being a bitch? We know you're upset we haven't caught bin Laden. We're working on it. You're adorable when you try to act tough, though."

That brings me to Jessica Chastain. You know, it's one thing to have to sit through a very long film you're not enjoying. It's quite another to sit through a very long film you're not enjoying with a main character you can't stand. I found Jessica Chastain's character Maya to be grating and one-dimensional, that one dimension being "obsessed with getting bin Laden." This is her one defining character trait, and the only thing we ever know about her.

And she's also kind of a bitch and swears at her boss, since that's professional. I guess that's supposed to make her a "strong female character," but seeing little Maya standing at the numerous briefings with her arms crossed, lips pursed, and eyes glaring out under furled brow came across more like a toddler holding its breath until it got to watch more cartoons. I'm not saying that for a women to be tough she has to be Briene of Tarth or anything, but with as instantly confrontational and puffed up in her bravado as Maya is while being a shallow as hell character, she comes across more like the demon fiance in any random romantic comedy who is holding back the male love interest from being with probably Katherine Heigl and will end up falling into a pool with a wedding dress on or get a cake dropped on her head or something by the end of it.

I don't care how cool her shades are. She's still boring as hell.

The only redeeming quality I found in ZD30 was the last 40 minutes or so, which shows the raid on bin Laden's compound. It's the only part of the film in which it feels like anything of substance is happening, which makes sense because it IS the only part where anything of substance happens. And to be fair, it is a very well shot and surprisingly tense scene, despite the fact that we know what's going happen. But it's less about any kind of surprise in the plot and more about watching the process with which the SEALs carry out the assault. Of course, I had no idea who any of these people were, so I felt nothing for them as characters, but hey, that's been par for the course for 2 hours leading up to it. Why start now?

Ah yes, the run time. It always seems to lead back to that, doesn't it? Here's the deal, and the last thing I'm going to say about "Zero Dark Thirty":

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" is 2 hours and 49 minutes. Everyone bitched and moaned and griped and whined about it being far too long, which admittedly it was. But you know what? Stuff happened in "The Hobbit." They fought goblins. And trolls. And wargs. And orcs. They flew on eagles. A ring of ultimate power and unimaginable evil was found. We saw 13 dwarves and a wizard cut their way through an army of goblins. We saw a goddamn dragon burn down a fortress built into a mountain. But no, that's "padded and overblown."

"Zero Dark Thirty" is 2 hours and 37 minutes long. That's only twelve minutes shorter than "The Hobbit." And you know what happens in that essentially identical amount of time? They water-board a guy, some car bombs go off, Jessica Chastain scowls at her boss a lot, and a bunch of Arabs get shot. We have all learned a valuable lesson. What is that lesson? F@#k if I know, but it's very important and you should give this movie Oscars. Roll credits.

How hard do you think I can type SYMBOLISM on my keyboard before it breaks something?

And by the way, what in the hell does "Zero Dark Thirty" even mean? I'm just wondering because the film never mentions it. That would have been nice.

Come to think of it, I don't care. It's probably military code for "pretentious."

Here's the trailer to "Zero Dark Thirty." Enjoy Jessica Chastain being uppity and Metallica's music actually becoming worse.

THE BOTTOM LINE - An insanely overrated piece of plodding, confusing garbage that is banking on the hope that you'll consider it a masterpiece because of who is directing it. Kathryn Bigelow has once again made a dull, full of itself snooze-fest that managed to irritate me even more than "The Hurt Locker," something I didn't think was possible. I miss "Point Break" Kathryn Bigelow.

Argo (2012)

It's that time again. Time to watch the movie that won Best Picture in this year's Oscar race with judgmental eyes and a crossed-armed "impress me" attitude that will surely be a healthy way to go about it. Not that my expectations were already set against "Argo" like they were for "The Artist." This one looked like a film I could conceivably enjoy. And I was just glad "Lincoln" didn't get top honors. So at the very least, that's something. But in the back of my mind I'm eternally gritting my teeth that "Django Unchained" didn't win. Quentin needs his Best Picture statue, dammit! He's earned it more than most of the rest of these chuckle-heads getting them like candy!

What I ended up getting from "Argo" was a movie that I didn't dislike. That's about the best I can say about it. I didn't dislike it. It was okay. It was acceptable. It was the textbook definition of something that sure didn't suck. And there is no way in Heaven, Hell, The Feywild, Valhalla, Middle-Earth, Cimmeria, or the Romulan Nebula that it was a better picture than "Django Unchained." I haven't seen "Zero Dark Thirty" yet but I'm guessing it was nowhere near as good as that one, either. As it was last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that one too, the Best Picture award went to the safest choice. Boo to that mess.

On the other hand, I did like it better than "Lincoln."

"Argo" is about a not-until-recently declassified operation during the Iran hostage crisis of the early 80's. Apart from the hostages being held at the embassy, there were 6 Americans who had managed to flee during the storming of the building, and were taken in by the Canadian ambassador. There they hid for months until the CIA launched a plan so ludicrous that it had to work. The plan was to get them out by disguising them as a film crew scouting locations for a movie. Of course, to make the cover story stick, they had to do a good chunk of the work required to actually make a movie.

More airports need a scary looking bearded man leering over you in quiet judgement.

They went as far as having a script, a producer, a cast, and news events promoting it. And it is fun to watch all the attention to detail that goes on, and how all those pieces eventually come together. The most tense moments of the movie are completely reliant on those little details, as these characters who have no knowledge of the film industry are having to whip out the illustrated storyboards and posters at airport security as they're being grilled on the validity of their story, and having to describe the artistic vision of the movie that they're not making. It does make for some mild suspense.

There's also some surprisingly good humor to be found. Most of the comedy can be found in Alan Arkin and John Goodman's performances, which are admittedly top-notch. Arkin is a very typical "Jew-y" producer with the trademark dry wit and sarcasm that you'd imagine someone like that to have. One of the best bits of "Argo" has him pulling an "I don't like you and you don't like me but screw it let's do this because we're both jerks" speech on another producer to get his support for the project, and it makes for a pretty funny scene that also feels very natural. And John Goodman is again playing John Goodman, and that's awesome. He's like Jeff Bridges in that he's always the same guy, but you never get tired of him because he rocks so hard. Bryan Cranston also gets a few good ones in there too, which is also unsurprising as he's Bryan Cranston and also freaking awesome.

"Bryan, where are you going?"

"Aw ta hell with all this. I'm making meth."

It's no surprise that the most interesting bits of "Argo" are the Hollywood bits with Arkin and Goodman. I don't want to say that the Iran portions were necessarily boring, but like I'm going to bring up later, there's no suspense because you know the Americans made it out. The Hollywood stuff was classified. We don't really know how they did it or what went into it, so there's some genuine drama there. Plus when you've got Arkin and Goodman tearing it up, it's hard to care as much about Affleck and his beard on the other side of the world.

This leads into my biggest problem with "Argo," which was that there wasn't enough going on to warrant that tension the movie thinks it has. Upon reflection, not a whole lot really happened. Americans escape overrun embassy in Iran, Canadians hide them, the CIA concocts a fake movie production, Ben Affleck goes in, the plan works, they get on a plane, they leave Iran. Roll credits. Truly an epic tale that makes J.R.R Tolkien look like E.L. James.

All this is no doubt well made, and the attention to detail and time period is pretty outstanding, as the movie rather egotistically points out during a masturbatory end credit sequence comparing shots from the movie to actual photos. But when all a movie has to hang its hat on is getting little details right, there's not much to get all arrogant about. And all that tension people were saying it had basically boils down to two phone calls. That's the big climactic hurdle our heroes must overcome: Getting someone on the phone. It's not even a tense conversation. It's just that John Goodman had to pick it up in time and say "Hello, Studio 7." Aside from that his biggest challenge was getting past a nerd with a walkie talkie, which between that and dealing with an Iranian extremist proved the more challenging venture.

"No, look you guys, this movie's legit. It's about a kid and an old wizard with magical powers, but later we find out the magic is actually bacteria! They won't be able to print money fast enough."

Not helping was the fact that the ending was already known to us from the very beginning, as it's based on a true story. We know they got out. All those little details don't matter too much when you're building tension because you know they're going to be fine. Even when their cover gets blown at the last moment and there's an effort to stop them before their plane takes off, there was never a moment when I was worried for them. The minute John Goodman picked up the phone I knew they were going to be just fine, and the dash to stop them, which was the nail-biting climax of the film, was completely ineffective on me.

The problem with "Argo" is that the fluff is good, but there's no crunch, so to speak. I brought nothing away from it. It's not a movie that's going to warrant any kind of discussion afterwards. Now I don't mean that to imply that unless a film is "deep" it's without value. Plenty of my favorite films wouldn't warrant any discussion afterwards besides "Did you see that guy getting blown in half?!" That doesn't mean it's bad. That means it's entertaining for what it's trying to do. But with "Argo" I can't say that I went as far as to even think about it after it was over. It was done and out of my head. In fact it was sometimes difficult to think about it when it was happening.

At least the proposed movie featuring a guy getting blown in half would have elicited a reaction out of me. In that case it would have been excitement or a high five if someone else was in the room. But when I feel absolutely nothing about a film afterwards, I just feel like I've wasted my time. I'd honestly rather watch an epically bad movie than something bland like "Argo" or "The King's Speech" or "The Social Network" or "Lincoln" or any of the rest of the "made-to-win-Oscars" brand of film making.

Now I'm not saying Affleck is a bad director...but I'm sorry, Ben. Tommy Wiseau has you beat in the entertainment department.

And by the way, don't look up what really happened if you want to enjoy "Argo" as a factual film, because the reality of the situation was actually far less exciting. I'm not saying that a movie has to be 100% accurate to be good, after all that's why it's called "based on true events" so they can have dramatic license. It's a movie, that's fine. But when you're bored by a film and then find out later that they actually jazzed it up quite a bit for the sake of "excitement," and it's STILL dull, it's all you can do to shake your head and wonder if it was worth it.

So once again my reputation for being a complete snob and not caring much for any movie that wins Best Picture is intact. I can't call "Argo" a bad film. It's just so unmemorable. Ben Affleck may be the newest sacred cow of Hollywood, but I think we may have another George Clooney/Sean Penn on our hands with him - meaning that he's going to get way more credit than he probably deserves, simply because he is who he is. And that's a shame because I think he's pretty good. I'd hate to see it go to his head. But even if it doesn't I'm sure Tarantino will still get jipped.

Check out the trailer for "Argo." I like how they used the "Inception" BWAAAAAA to make it intense.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Argo" is a solid example of basic competence. This is a vanilla milkshake. This a vodka and tonic. There is nothing overly special about it, tasty as it may be. I can't see a single reason this deserved Best Picture. And it's not just a matter of me holding it to a higher standard than others. I would have thought the same of it had it been by anybody else, or even if it hadn't been nominated for anything. It's worth a look, but not worth any gold statue.