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.

ParaNorman (2012)

I pride myself on being pretty good at calling how good a movie is going to be based on the trailers. It doesn't always work out, of course. I'm not always right, but generally I can make a fairly accurate generalization on whether or not I'll like it. When you see as many movies as I do, you do tend to get pretty good at it.

That is, as long as the marketing campaign for a movie isn't deceptive.

You see, Hollywood has a really nasty habit of lying to you. It's true, and I think it's a big problem that is the causation of why so many unique films bomb: They don't know how to market weird stuff.

The problem is that in a trailer, a feature length film has got to be condensed into a fine, chewable paste for the consumption of the lowest common denominator. There can't be any kind of idea that takes more than 5 seconds to convey, be understood, and absorbed by the viewers. That's why trailers are loud, obnoxious, and filled with poo jokes. They also love giving away scares or surprises or even the entire ending of the damn film, all in an effort to say "Look! Look how much stuff happens in this movie! It's got action! It's scary! Look, here's every scare in the entire film!"

The reason they do this, of course, is so that you know the scare is coming, which naturally makes it more effective.

::sigh::

You ever get the feeling it's this guy making all the movie trailers?

Back on point though, this same formula that has been in place ever since they started making previews for movies is a big problem as to why certain films can come off as completely different than what you end up getting. Remember that debacle with "Drive," where that lady actually had the brass to sue the filmmakers because the trailer was too deceptive, and instead of getting a "Fast and The Furious" clone like she wanted, she got an artsy exploitation flick? Well, as stupid as that is, she's got a point. The trailer was insanely deceptive. But at the same time, I have no idea how you'd make a traditional trailer for "Drive" and really convey what you'd be getting.

Actually, I'm pretty sure I could have made a better one, but that's beside the point.

This brings us to "ParaNorman." I was indescribably excited when I first saw the trailer for this film, and saw that it included some of the talent from "Coraline," a movie I considered the best film I saw in 2009. And the trailer for "ParaNorman" started off really well with a creepy atmosphere and gorgeous stop-motion animation, and I was loving it. And then the trailer kept going, and getting worse and worse as it went, because it just looked so...generic. After the awesomeness that was "Coraline," this looked like a huge downgrade. And I was just bummed out by it.

But I finally forced myself to see it, and man, am I glad that I did. In another case where I happily discovered that it was simply a matter of a movie being too good for its trailer, "ParaNorman" ended up surprisingly being one of the best films I've seen this year. Not only was it a gorgeous example of an all but forgotten style of animation, a charming homage to the horror genre, and genuinely funny, but it was reminiscent of kid's movies from back in the day that were objectively good. And while that last one would have made it far worth seeing, it's the other things that just put it over the top to make it something really special.

Have I mentioned it's pretty?

The plot of "ParaNorman" is that Norman is a young boy who can see and talk to ghosts. He sees them all time, and isn't disturbed by it in the least, which is probably why he loves horror films. Of course, due to this he is ostracized at school and is a total outcast. Soon, however, he finds out about a 200 year old curse that he must become the keeper of, to prevent a witch from raising the dead. All of this culminates in a single night of zombies, mobs, and a whole lot of chaos.

I must admit that from the very opening credits, "ParaNorman" had its hooks in me completely. The opening titles are presented in 4:3 ratio, grainy, crappy audio goodness as a parody of grindhouse movies and gory exploitation films begins. As bad acting, cheesy makeup and boom mics in the shot occur in a very funny scene, we pull out to see our main character Norman watching them in his living room with his Grandma. She asks him, "What's happening now, dear?" Norman casually says, "The zombie is eating her brains." She then just as casually replies "Oh. Well that's not very nice."

Then as he goes into the kitchen, and his parents ask him what he's doing. He says he's watching a movie with Grandma. His parents then remind him his Grandma is dead, and that he's got to stop doing that.

Oh. OH! Oh, wow...

What a fantastic and unashamedly dark way to open a film. They don't make kids movies like that anymore. When was the last time a movie marketed towards kids confronted death in such a laid back manner? It was really refreshing to see a movie that was not afraid to go where it is generally taboo to go. Of course, I've never specifically heard if "a corpse licking someone" is considered a social faux-pas, because that happens too, but I'll just assume that it is.

In fact, as the movie goes on, there are more and more shockingly dark things the movie ended up doing which ended up being quite moving and had some great impact. In particular was the scene where the facts of the witch's death hundreds of years ago come to light, and we discover the origin of the curse. There is a reveal in that scene which is genuinely shocking and horribly tragic. I had to pick my jaw out of my lap at that point. Bravo to the film for having guts, because it paid off big time, and really helped hammer home the message of the film, which is "If you hurt those who have hurt you, you end up being just as bad as they are."

Without that great tragedy, that message would have fallen flat, because the pure rage the witch needed to have would have felt disingenuous. And as a result, when the witch is faced with forgiving those who wronged her, the power of that comes through just that much stronger. It's actually quite sad, but also very beautiful.

Also, it's a really intense, creepy, absolutely gorgeous looking scene.

Norman is voiced by one of my favorite young actors, Kodi Smit-McPhee, who is an absolute monster on the screen, and has floored me with his performances twice before, once in "The Road," which he could have gotten an Oscar nomination for, and again in "Let Me In." He reminds me of Max Records a bit, actually, because they are both scary good. And while it was a shame to not see his very expressive face, he along with everyone else in "ParaNorman" did a fantastic job voicing their characters.

Also in the cast were Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Casey Affleck, who added some of the best comedic moments, but I was more excited about Bernard Hill (King Theoden from "Lord of The Rings"), John Goodman, Anna Kendrick and finally Jodelle Ferland, another amazing young actress who was a revelation in Terry Gilliam's superb "Tideland." This is some hardcore talent going on here. And also there was Leslie Mann if you care about that kind of thing.

Comparisons to "Coraline" are inevitable, and although I liked "Coraline" more than "ParaNorman," the amount of pure enjoyment was essentially equal for different reasons. "Coraline" I loved for the story and atmosphere, while "ParaNorman" I loved for the humor and homage to horror films, and they would actually be an amazing double feature with each other, because they both are films that are not afraid to get a bit dark, and threat kids like adults. It's just so wonderful to get a slice of uniqueness in a movie theater when we are all so used to the same recycled crap.

SHOW ME YOUR WAR FACE!!!

I said earlier that "ParaNorman" was a dark film, and yes, it's true. It's rated PG, but it's a hard PG. There are some things in "ParaNorman" that I've heard some people get upset over, and yeah there's some admittedly creepy and surprisingly intense moments to be found, but if I may be so bold, that's exactly why I loved this film. It is a movie made just as much for adults as children, and in the end, that is what will give it staying power. It's the rare film that a parent can enjoy just as much as a kid which should be the definition of a "family film." If it's brain-dead crap like "The Smurfs" or "Mr. Popper's Penguins," and only the kid is enjoying it while the adults just want someone to drill a hole in their head to just make it stop, then it's not a family movie, is it?

But honestly, if your kid can't handle it, maybe you should have done your homework and realized it was a movie about witches and zombies before taking them to see the movie. Read a review of it. Or maybe read the ratings reasons which are made very accessible from numerous sources, including the poster, at the ticket counter, and online. The search would take 4 seconds. In the age of the internet, going into a movie blind like that is so easy to avoid that there's really not much of an excuse.

Meanwhile, this adult is going to sit back and enjoy the hell out of a movie that includes homages to Z-grade Claudio Fragasso schlock, has a "Scooby-Doo" style vibe, actually makes me laugh out loud through the whole thing, and also has a reference to "Manos: The Hands of Fate." That sounds like my kind of movie. And I'm going to enjoy it a lot.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "ParaNorman" is fantastic.  The last movie that I had this kind of reaction to was "The Muppets" last year. Both that film and "ParaNorman" were able to hold me in a constant state of awe, wonder, and perpetual smiles. The story was fun and mysterious, the tone was dark and went to surprisingly dark places, the characters were alive and loveable, the look was gorgeous, and the references just felt like they were tailor-made for me. This is making my Top Ten of 2012, I can almost guarantee. Highly Recommended. Seriously, you need to see it.

The Artist (2011)

I remember feeling nothing but absolute apathy for the 2012 Oscars. Out of the ludicrous pile of 10 Best Picture nominees, which by the way the Academy needs to cut the hell down on, there was only one, ONE film that I gave even the slightest crap about. That movie was "Moneyball," a good film, but Oscar bait all the same. And even if it was good, I wouldn't have chosen it for any kind of Oscar. It wasn't that good.

"Hugo" and "War Horse" were among the absolute worst I had seen that year, and "Tree of Life" I will count till the end of my days one of the worst, most painful experiences I've ever subjugated my poor brain to. So of course these were among the nominees for Best Picture. And "The Muppets," the best film I saw that year, was nowhere in sight. The only award it got was for Best Original Song for "Man or Muppet," which was honestly probably the weakest song of the whole movie. Clearly this awards show has passed me by.

That, or the Academy has their heads up their asses. You make the call.

Of course there ended up being two movies that ran away with pretty much every award that night, the first being "Hugo" (screw you) and the other movie, the one that took home Best Picture, being "The Artist," a film I honestly hadn't even heard of. This makes sense since it only got a limited release in the States. The only thing I knew about it was that it was in black and white, and was about the era of silent film. Sounds just pretentious enough to be ready for Oscar.

And after finally seeing it, I now know that being in black and white and about early Hollywood was only the tip of the pretentious iceberg of "The Artist." Had I known that it was also not only in a 4:3 aspect ratio, which makes watching at home in an age where every TV is widescreen completely annoying, but that it is also actually silent with intertitles and everything, I would have just called it right then and there that it would get Best Picture. It doesn't matter if it's good or not. That is pretension of the highest caliber.

The only time he's not wearing this stupid smirk is when he's got a gun to his head.

Let's get one thing out of the way first and foremost: "The Artist" is not a bad movie. It just has it's head so firmly planted up its own colon that it's seeing it's lunch again 4 seconds after swallowing. It's clear that there is a lot of passion going on with the making of this film. The people involved obviously love silent movies, and want to pay tribute to them. And honestly, they do a great job of that. The look of this movie is dead on, and it would be very easy to think of this as a film from the late 1920's if you didn't know any better.

The story is also in the same style as an old fashioned drama, following the fall of fictional silent film star, George Valentin. At the advent of "talkies," George dismisses them as a doomed gimmick, only to find himself ruined and out of work a few years later, after his studio quits making silent films. Eventually he is brought back around from the brink of suicidal despair by an actress, Peppy Miller, who George had an almost-there romance with years earlier, and his career is rekindled. There's a bit more to it, but that's the movie in three sentences. It's not a bad little story, actually.

But did it need to be silent? I would argue that the gimmick of having no sound except for the music is more detrimental to the film than good. In fact, this could have probably been a really interesting period piece had it been made in sound. You know, like every flipping movie of the past 90 years. However, the silence is just plain distracting in how much it draws attention it itself. As quiet as "The Artist" is, it is screaming at us the whole time at the top of its lungs, "LOOK AT ME! I'M ARTSY!"

John Goodman? One of the best actors around? Naw, we don't need to hear him. #wastedtalent

I really hate to say that, because I sound like your average popcorn slamming, lowest common denominator, movie going clod. But the fact remains that it's really difficult to get into a silent movie made in 2011 because it's hard to imagine why they did it. It doesn't add anything to the film. In fact you're taking away an indescribably huge part of the film experience.

I've read that the director, Michel Hazanavicius, was interested in making a silent film for years because of the "image-driven nature of the form." I'm guessing what he means is that by not having dialogue or sound, the picture is more important and somehow more pure. That is cosmically stupid.

I've got news for you, Michel, image is always and will always be important, even if there is sound. This isn't radio. This is a movie. The very essence of a movie is the projection of images being shown at 24 frames every second so as to make the illusion of movement, and by putting these images in a specific sequence, conveying a narrative. Sound does not detract, it does not carry the film, and it does not mean that the images are somehow less important than if there was no sound over the top of them, and to suggest that is honestly pretty snooty.

It would be like suggesting that by drawing a picture of a rainbow in normal black pencil, it is somehow a more pure rainbow. That's the kind of pretentious crap that hipsters and film school graduates ponder over a venti vanilla no-foam soy macchiato.

He would have shown up, but coffee is too mainstream.

What could have made this film far more interesting, in my opinion, is if it had only been silent in the beginning, and going to sound at around the end of the first act. In fact, for a second I thought that was precisely what was going on. There is a scene where George has a nightmare that is actually in sound, although it's not true sound but stock sound effects, however the effect is still very jarring when it happens. Had the rest of the movie continued in that fashion, it would have been a pretty neat effect that would fit with the plot, since at that point George is looking at his own ruin due to the rise of the "talkies." Unfortunately, he wakes up and that's that. It's back to silent for the rest of the movie.

Except for literally the last 15 seconds of the film. That's in sound, and while it was nice to finally hear John Goodman, one of my favorite actors actually speak, it's so jarring and confusing and honestly completely nonsensical that all it does is highlight the fact that it was so much better to hear them speaking in the first place!

So did "The Artist" deserve Best Picture? Good gravy, no. The only reason it won was because it had the silent movie gimmick going on. Had it been in sound, it would have been a passable period drama that was trying really hard to be old fashioned. And nobody would have given it a second glance.

"Mug for the camera...aaaaaaaand GIVE US ALL THE OSCARS!!!"

THE BOTTOM LINE - If you've never seen a silent movie before, this will be ROUGH. It's such an archaic way of making a film that it's really difficult to sit through, unless you're familiar with really old films, or can at least appreciate them. It might be worth seeing as a curiosity, but in the end it's really nothing special. Recommended if the concept of a silent film made in 2011 intrigues you.