Entertainment Etcetera

Okay, it's been a long time between updates and really each of these deserves its own full review but the spirit of long-form commentary isn't in me so I'll just pump these off and hopefully have something better for you next time.

Ratatouille

Like big-budget animation via Food TV, the story of the partnership between a rat who can cook and the illegitimate son of a famous chef is probably the best movie of the summer. I obviously can't say for sure since I've only seen, what, five movies this summer, but yes, this was so incredibly enjoyable for both young and old. The rats had a very warm, Henson muppet-like quality to them, like Gonzo or Grover, making them cute and appealing, while the human characters were wildly expressive and the best digital animation has done so far with human characters. Brad Bird, following up the Incredibles (with Cars sandwiched in-between) at Pixar has made the best of their movies, in my opinion, which is saying a lot considering the studio's long line of exceptionally high-quality films. Perhaps it's because it does skew a bit more mature in both it's comedy and story, and thus as well the least marketable of Pixar's movies to date (not a lot of young boys screaming for toy rats as they were with Cars or Toy Story), but in overall sensibility it's quite an accomplishment. The voice talent is probably the least star-studded of any of Pixar's and yet the talent is exceptional, perfect in every role. This may not be "important" like a war movie or some historical drama, but it's sweet, funny, intelligent and entertaining like few other films are or have ever been. Forget best animated picture, this should be in a best picture category.
-5/5-

Transformers

While Ratatouille may be the best picture I've seen this summer (out of my meager selections), I think I liked Transformers the best, which in its own way makes no sense, but I digress. Directed by Michael Bay, whom I've never had any love for, Transformers takes a toy line/animated property from my childhood (which honestly I never did care about) and made a rollicking summer action blockbuster that allows you to shut your brain off and enjoy the ride. Oh, it's not without its missteps, but I think the movie wisely decided that a straight focus on the robots-in-disguise themselves wasn't going to fly with a general audience and instead crafted three storylines which built up to a number of small reveals and then one or two big ones. One of the stories had no staying power beyond the second act, and the inevitable collision of the three arcs didn't work quite as well as I'm sure they had hoped, but the cast, by and large, was solid, with Shia LaBeouf's motormouth leading the way and Megan Fox providing much more than just eye candy (but she's just like a younger Jennifer Connelly). The impetus for the climax is kind of weird and the chop-chop-chop editing of the fight scenes (patented Michael Bay) is disorienting, but overall it's actually fairly smart stupid summer popcorn fun. I saw it twice.

4/5

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I'm not the target market for Harry Potter. Magic kind of bothers me. I like the swords not so much the sorcery in fantasy. Though there may be ground rules, there always a part of me that thinks "you can do anything with magic" and that possibility bores me. Like modern day Superman comics where nothing really threatens the hero. Okay, weird analogy, but I digress. That said, I liked this Harry Potter movie better than the last one... much better. The pacing was right, the characterization was great (even if Harry's romance was a bit truncated) and the story engaged me better than any of the previous movies. It's probably because the maturity level of the story has grown with the characters, the weight of Voldemort's threat growing exponentially and the first wizard duel since the unbearably short one in Fellowship of the Rings that actually looked like an honest to gosh battle. Too bad we don't get to see much of Alan Rickman and Gary Oldman together... those guys really should star in a movie together. But I'm getting sidetracked. I've never caught Harry Potter-mania, and if I did it didn't last very long... I think this is my favourite of the bunch so far... with a solid story and nice hints at bigger things to come.

3.5/5

Sunshine

The slow-moving space mission has been done... starting with 2001, Silent Running, Solaris (the original and the remake), Alien, 2010, Event Horizon, Mission To Mars, and a dozen or two others. They're formulaic and each successive one brings little to the table that hasn't been seen before. Sunshine is the product of director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland's third pairing, and like 28 Days Later was their homage to the zombie genre, this is their homage to the space mission genre. The script is endlessly formulaic, the fantastic cast (including Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans and Michelle Yeoh) is left to hang with relatively thin characterization, and yet, for all its tedium I still found it engaging, the little nuances of difference between one film's space walk and another's still enough to grip me tightly, and the notes of the slightly more unusual or fantastic just enough to stimulate me. They dropped the ball on not dissecting what an Earth with a dying sun and drained mineral resources has become, and it's a big gaping question mark for me that really should have been filled (via "from home" communications, rather simply). If you dig this kind of thing, it's a fine if unnecessary entry into the genre.

3/5

Superbad

I've been ingesting a bunch of Superbad producer Judd Apatow's television works (Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared) as well as revisiting The 40-year-old Virgin and, earlier this summer, Knocked Up and there's a definite theme to his work. As much as it's about outsiders and the unity within these outside circles, it's really a potent examination of the male sexual psyche and how hung up men are on sex, and all the thousands of horrifically neurotic permutations of embarrassment, shame and guilt we can bring to it, and really how silly it all is. Superbad is the latest addition, and although written by co-star Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the spectre of Apatow looms over it large, as two awkward outcast teenagers find themselves invited to a senior party and charged with the task of providing booze. Of course, this is a life or death issue for them as the girls of their affection are going to be there, and there's the chance that if they don't like them well, at least they may be drunk enough to sleep with them. Tragi-comic twists and turns keep the boys from achieving their goals, as the third member of their triad is shanghaied by the police and taken on his own adventure. The rather juvenile humour mixed with all-too-real neurotic teenaged obsession and conflict, as well as the absurd, yet not entirely unrealistic scenarios, piece together to make a truly hilarious movie. Owing a debt of gratitude for the language boundary-pushing done by Kevin Smith, and in part paying homage to John Hughes, and managing to side-step (for the most part) gross-out humour, this truly has that Apatow feel all the way through.

4.5/5