Feminism takes Hollywood 2k15: Mad Max and Spy

    Feminism. It's a topic. Apparently a complicated one, the idea of equality between genders is a topic of debate and has become knotted and messy, only aided by films that apparently have a "feminist agenda" and have the battles starting on their battlegrounds. Two such films have come out in about the past month, both to (mostly) large love from critics and audiences alike, playing on your expectations about genre and women's role in film: Mad Max: Fury Road and Spy.
    Fury Road is an action spectacle, simply put. It's not so much a fun popcorn thrill as much as it's this hypnotic, disturbed and disturbing apocalypse. An apocalypse in both setting and filmmaking style, that is. The film is relentless in a way you won't find in any Hollywood action film, like Fury Road exists outside the butts-in-seats movie producing system. There are no comedic breathers or true jokes of any kind, the movie is spoken in this futuristic sort of twisted english vernacular hidden behind thick accents and speedy delivery, weird bits of gruesome world building are shown with a sense of casualness, and the whole film has a constant frenetic energy to it. It doesn't care about playing it safe by any Hollywood standards, and while the plot plays along the lines of predictable, the sheer overwhelming style of it all almost hides that, and the narrative heft keeps you involved in what could've been tired ideas.
    It's an entirely visual film with very little dialogue, yet the emotional side of the film is much more engaging than in many modern action films. The conflict is based on a very Mad Max-ian, disturbing dystopian idea of a woman named Furiosa (Charlize Theron) rebelling against a dictator by helping his 5 wives that he selected for breeding escape, with Max...helping. So no, it's not really Max's story, we'll get to that.
    There are some interesting turns with the characters, for instance the wives. They aren't just dumb, shallow victims and treated like objects. They are actively engaged in the plot and the action scenes, and each are actually given separate characteristics. There's the clear leader, the rageful fighter, the quiet, compassionate one and...the two others. The film goes fast, but I can promise they're all characterized enough to connect to. There's also Nux, captivatingly played by Nicholas Hoult. He is one of the dictator's "War Boys" that switches sides and whose character arcs over the course of the film perfectly. Furiosa and Max are rounded enough, they're similarly likable, brooding, hard ass characters without being too brooding or hard ass. It's not that aspect of their characters that truly stands out, though, it's their relationship. That is, their strictly platonic relationship. They're the two main characters, male and female, and they never show an inkling of romantic attraction or tension. No cute pick-up lines or exchanges, slight glances, no adrenaline powered sex scenes or a drawn out kiss to close the film, the idea of romance or sex is so irrelevant in the film's mind that it isn't even a topic to be discussed, and it's so refreshing. Imagine, over 100 years of filmmaking where platonic relationships between a man and woman are almost completely unheard of (unless one or both are in a relationship, not straight, etc.) and here's Fury Road. It presents male and female main characters that never show any attraction to each other, but also never make it a statement against Hollywood stereotypes. There's no "Ha, take that Hollywood, we don't abide by your romantic norms" and that makes it so much more powerful.
    There is a romantic B plot that adds that sense of humanity to the film, though. It's between Nux and one of the wives, but it's well developed and fairly heartbreaking, plus it's two characters that in any other film, would never be considered for an on screen relationship, let alone one that's so complete and where a whole five or six minutes is solely devoted to them starting the romance. The development of the characters, something that is squished to the side in a lot of action films, takes center place in Fury Road, and is one of the many elements that makes it stand out from the pack.
    And now the complete opposite of Fury Road, Spy. Spy is very much a Hollywood film. While Fury Road eviscerates the idea of the usual Hollywood film and its tropes, visual style, characters and dialogue stylings, Spy simply tweaks the usual structure, sense of comedy, characterizations, etc. yet still stands out as a strong, unique, and rather daring comedy.
    Of course the biggest draw of it all is Melissa McCarthy, who is, shocker, incredible and charismatic as usual. All of her strengths are perfectly highlighted by Feig's writing: the verbal (and sometimes visual) gross out humor, the spit fire ramblings, the awkward mutterings, the slapstick, the relatability, and even moments of genuine dramatic vulnerability. McCarthy's character of Susan feels complete and gets to show a range of emotion. While she's consistently hilarious with perfect timing and a balance between the cartoonish and real-world, she's also a dramatically engaging character. Her deeper moments on screen are delivered just as easily and charismatically as the comedy, she brings to life her whole plight to be accepted among the ranks of the other spies and win the guy in the end that she loves. The underdog story as seen here is a bit of a cliché, but McCarthy and Feig are able to breathe some new life into it.
    What separates Spy from your average big dumb broad slapstick comedy is the well crafted emotional tenderness and rounded supporting characters, especially Nancy (Miranda Hart), Rayna (Rose Byrne), Rick (Jason Statham), Elaine (Allison Janney) and Bradley (Jude Law). They're all widely varied characters, some being almost cartoonish and representing the more parodying side of the film, but they're all lovable in their own way. There's a light hearted energy to all of the film, where the actors are able to sink into their characters but also bring in their own dimension as themselves, creating that level where they seem like they're enjoying what they're working on and who they're working with. And what separates Spy as a parody from the schlock that is the usual 21st century parody is a genuine knowledge and love for the material being mocked. It goes back to that "enjoying what they're working on" idea, where Feig understand the tropes and how to play with the high tension of spy thrillers to be funny. The first 5 minutes or so of the film are played completely straight, able to easily pass for an actual spy film, until the first joke that packs a hilarious wallop. Those same ideas show up throughout the film, the use of cinematography, music, and dialogue to create that jolt between the serious set up and comedic delivery. The film's not incredibly consistent with the comedy: the gross out jokes get tired quickly, some of the jokes with big build-ups just kinda splat to the ground, and it isn't entirely clear if certain moments are supposed to be dramatic points or jokes. It's a rarity though, as most of the film shines through in all it's dirty ideas and over the top delivery, with McCarthy being the beautiful center of it all.
   Why review both of these films at the same time? Well not only are both films gigantic critical successes (a bit surprising, in my opinion), and not only do both pass the Bechdel test with flying colors and go past it's feminist qualifications, but both films seem to exist in a world where the Bechdel test would never be necessary, where women take men's usual place in film and it's not treated as a big statement.
    The main character in Fury Road is not Max, actually, but Furiosa, the Rebel that betrays her society for what's morally right and arcs to eventually live up to the fate she's built up to her whole life. Max is just kinda there. He does things, he's involved in the plot, the action and discussions, but he's not actually the main character that changes throughout the film, he's a stoic window into the conflict of the movie, surrounding Furiosa and the escaped wives. Women make up a majority of the heroic side of the film: everybody except Max and Nux, and have the biggest driving force in the film. They're all individual, strong, and gender is never called into question. Nobody is discriminated against, pigeon-holed into a lesser position, or are forced to prove themselves due to gender. Well there is the fact that the evil dictator in the film uses the prettiest women as slave-wives, but he never says or implies that "women are sex-slaves", it's more like "anybody who has the ability to make babies are sex-slaves" so...gender isn't really the idea. Everybody just does what they does, gender never really regarded.
    The same exact display of female characters is shown in Spy, and it arguably has a stronger effect. Susan Cooper is smart yet awkward, high-spirited and frumpish, invisible and easily underestimated, whose character slowly arcs as she becomes more confident in her abilities. She's also big. But it's easy to forget that in the film, because unlike most films that star a larger person in a leading role, it's not focused on. She is bigger than the other people in the movie, but there's never a real fat joke in there. There's the exact opposite, where we see her post-makeover dressed up all sexy like walking in slow motion, and the sole purpose is to make the audience see her as sexy. She's treated like any other   skinny Hollywood actress in the role would be, and it's successful. Maybe there's an offhand remark I missed, or if you convoluted some jokes you could make it about weight, but it doesn't show up as a cheap last resort for laughs. It's not the most body-positive movie, as I do remember some remarks against skinnier women in the film, but there's still something to be said for going so far against body image norms as to actually have people of different statures be treated equally without it being a "thing". She's a strong, dimensional female character, who pursues a man but doesn't let that override her character.
    This makes Susan one of the strong female ensemble in a film essentially run by its female characters. While the villain, as in the person being followed throughout the film committing the evil thing, is a man, he doesn't really show up till the end. Our main antagonist-like figure that stirs up and shit Susan sorta kinda works against is Rayna (female), Susan's best friend Nancy (female) plays a large role in the film, and the head of the CIA is Elaine (female). Nearly every action in the film is driven directly by a woman, and there's rarely a discussion centered around a man.
    It's similarly fascinating how progressive the film is in how it treats its female characters. They take roles traditionally done by entirely or mostly men, and they're personalities are more masculine then we expect from film. They cuss nonchalantly, they take charge easily, they shoot and fight, they're rude and brash sometimes, they aren't ladylike and don't focus on their femininity, yet we still laugh with them, not at them. The joke is never "look at these women try to act all manly and fail" or any kind of shock factor, the jokes are simply what they say and do. And the gender isn't focused on in the film. Like Fury Road, there's no heavy handed feminist message with men constantly putting down women for being women, everyone just does what they does and gender doesn't play in.
    That is probably the best way to show gender equality in film, at least in action films. No talk of gender rolls and rebelling against them, no separations between woman and man, just people, doing the things that people need to do in the situation.

12 Favorite Films of 2014

Well...at least posting in April is better than posting this list in June...which I did for 2013. Be aware of these points going into this:

• Yes I did rank these films because ranking is fun and that's all the reasoning I need
• No I did not see every film that came out this year (Hell, not even every Best Picture Academy Award nominee) so this is more of a "Films from 2014 I would highly suggest watching" list, not a "Definitive Best films of 2014" list
• Yes, this list is nothing more than Oscar Darlings with a few Indie hits mixed in...Enjoy!

12. The Skeleton Twins
    Between this and Foxcatcher, we received a whole plethora of "comedic actors turn in dramatic roles". And I usually groan at those kind of movies because of how much they feel like Oscar bait, but Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig play their characters so perfectly, it's hard to see anyone else in their spots. And the roles are hard, as the subject of unstable brother/sister relationships isn't often explored in film. The pair play the perfect chemistry, twisting seamlessly between the awkward emotional reunion, the soulful familial connections and the unashamedly stupid jokes, with ease. They're supported by great writing, or at least great dialogue writing, that flows naturally with all of it's comedy and drama in a bittersweet mix, every conversation showing the layers of the life long sibling attachments and recent detachments. Every joke produces warm laughter and every dramatic point produces stiffening tension. There's a smooth masterfulness to a lot of the writing, the most noticeable example being a subplot involving Hader and a former lover. There's a twist that is of a kind hard to pull off in storytelling, as the characters all know the information of the twist, the only ones left in the dark are the audience. Yet in setting up the relationship, creating full characters, and revealing the twist, the story never feels forced and convoluted, the movie never works too hard to keep the audience from knowing it. It is all presented with such ease and intelligence that when the dark twist finally comes, it's a genuine dramatic bomb, but one that doesn't come completely out of nowhere. This doesn't mean the writing is perfect all the time: The Climax convolutes like Hell to get us to that happy ending and the film falls into a pattern of "main characters make jokes, then have a fight, then bond over deep personal moments" and repeat. It works fine, but it's tired after a while.
    It's a film filled with highlights of writing: lip syncing "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now", making fun of the volunteer actors on a community haunted walk, a monologue exposing the harsh reality of the "Losers in High School will be the Winners in Life" idea, among many others. It's levitated to the status of a great Family Drama by the classic performances from Wiig and Hader, who take what could be incredibly unlikable, gradingly mopey characters and turn them relatable and compassionate with writing that for the most part strikes that chord of warm humanity and comedy.

11. Selma
    I mean, it's the white guilt film of the year, it's not like these can ever be bad. But Selma does work as more than "just another civil rights film that works on the white guilt factor". What sets it apart the most is the humanity it brings to MLK. This is the first major film about the man, so obviously it's gunning for the position of the essential one about his life. And I'll buy it, because it makes King feel like more than just the saint of African-Americans, he's a human. A human that thinks about more than his angst and the grave struggle he's in, a human that laughs, makes jokes, feels vulnerable sometimes, and even shows deep, unforgivable flaws in his personal life. When the movie could've just been praise for the man and all he did, it creates a much more dimensional, real Dr. King, which in turn grounds the rest of the movie in it's all too depressing reality. The part is brought to life by David Oyelowo, who displays the power and conviction of MLK naturally, but also the downplayed humane moments.
   Unflinching in it's portrayal of a turbulent time in a realistically racist America, Selma soars not just on its daringly dimensional framing of it's heroic main character. It soars through Ava Duvernay's, who doesn't shy away from the pure blood and violence of the time, but doesn't exploit it for an easy shock factor either. While there are some imperfect and weak choices, especially when it comes to the placement of music, there are still many powerful moments on display. A masterful sense of intensity and gloom hangs over every word and image, up until the final moments of its bittersweet ending that, surprisingly, doesn't end with MLK's death. And that's one of the elements that makes Selma so much better than "just another civil rights film that works on the white guilt factor", because it truly makes it about his life, not his tragic death.  It's humane and grounded writing, beautiful cinematography, perfected central performance, non-III act structure, and powerful sense of tension make it the essential MLK and maybe even the essential civil rights movement film...yet it's still not even the best film of the year about African American struggles.

10. Obvious Child
    The romantic movie has a very bad rep. these days. It's the "Nicholas Sparks Effect" mixed with the "Twilight Effect" mixed with the "Nora Ephron's Decreased Quality By the End of Her Career Effect". Most of the film of the genre today have soapy dialogue and melodramatic plotting, making a sort of mediocre romance mud over the past decade or so. And the only blades of grass that stick out of the mud usually end up being beaten down witch cries from the public of "meh". Fortunately, Obvious Child is more than just a blade of grass, it's a full on beautiful, badass daisy.
    It's a film that's very grounded in reality, which it has to be due to being centered around the real life, controversial and morally complicated idea of a woman dealing her abortion. The characters are all likable and less quirky than you'd expect with their original set-ups, the chemistry between the romantic leads is perfect, and the wildly emotional woman child main character never feels annoying, but fully understandable and real. Her decisions and emotional changes work and make sense to create the character. Played by the charismatic and fiery Jenny Slate, the character of Donna is a stand up comedienne, with a lot of self-depricating, offbeat humor that consistently works. However her humor is also fairly juvenile at points, which means yes, the potty humor is made sometimes, but it works. It works to create the character of who Donna is, helps the audience see what she finds funny in a character where's that quality is pretty important. You may laugh at the joke and you may not, but in a way, it doesn't entirely matter, because it makes her laugh, and makes us realize who Donna is.
    The movie is a lot more than potty humor though. Besides that and a lot of comedic and light hearted romantic moments that work, it's a completely honest and refreshingly unpolitical look at abortion. There's never a mention of pro-life and pro-choice in the whole movie, let alone a debate on the issue. It's entirely a personal journey, and one that shows all of Donna's emotions without dipping into the pool of unrealistic melodrama. And with Jenny Slate's performance that perfectly captures the likably wild and dramatic Donna and the extroverted, rambling nature of comedian life, Obvious Child is one of the most genuine and honest romantic comedies in years.

9. Nightcrawler
(full review also posted earlier)
    This movie comes out at a time when the prophecies of Network and Broadcast News have begun to come true. Television news has reached an era of absolute exploitation and almost a complete removal from the actual important issues of today. And while Nightcrawler is certainly not the first film of this time to address the issue, it's arguably the best.
    Nightcrawler centers around the perfect window into the world of trashy local news, that being the people who film the seedy crime scenes and car crashes the night of, selling the footage to news stations...and the disturbed man who took that job a step too far. It's a set up that leads to a powerhouse of gloomy satire. The clearly mentally off main character of Louis Bloom verbally points out every cynical flaw of the system, yet fully involves himself in the same system, in increasingly morally despicable ways. It's a perfect story that is delivered with brilliant build up and pay off and piercing dialogue from it's script, and some gripping tension, a sleek look and visual symbolism from it's direction. And the strong direction is not only visually remarkable, but aurally as well. The soundtrack is brilliant, in a very unorthodox way. Commonly, it plays as if it were the music playing within Bloom's mind. When he does something horrifying but helpful to his job, the music is creepily triumphant. Underplayed, but still triumphant.
    Jake Gyllenhaal's powerhouse performance matches such a powerhouse film. The commitment he had to creating such a defined kind of creepy intensity, not just physically but mentally, shines through to reveal all the complexities of the character. A character that is a fascinating person himself, but also a representation of the heartless machine of news, and one that serves as a blunt warning in a world of TV that, as Howard Beale from Network would say, should make you "mad as hell".

8. The LEGO Movie
    Currently,  I'm jumping onto the "why the hell did this not win the Best Animated Feature Oscar" bandwagon. It's understandable why it wasn't picked, it is a hard sell, considering it's a film based off a toy brand. On the surface, it would appear to be hackneyed and lazy, targeting the lowest common denominator with easy jokes. But it's actually an extremely smart, original, and highly funny children's films, undoubtedly one of the best family films of the American mainstream in recent memory.
    It does follow the usual pattern of children's films: Main character lies to work way into group of people to accomplish goal and even the lie is revealed but they save the day and everyone is happy. You've seen it in almost all of Dreamsworks' films, a few newer Disney films, and Pixar's lesser films, and it shows up here...but it all happens within 20 minutes. And after that, it's an absolute whirlwind of creativity and new, sometimes thought provoking, ideas. The plot goes in some fascinating directions, the most notable point being when the film fully and completely breaks the fourth wall in a mind bending way, and then creates a fifth wall and breaks that too...it's weird. A perfect kind of weird, which describes the whole movie. Without giving away a lot of the jokes and twists in the screenplay, I'll say it doesn't allow itself to be lazy because it's "just a kids movie" and can get away with that. The sheer effort is everywhere: the deadpan and sarcastic comedy that commonly plays on American pop culture, the beautiful and intricate animation that actually looks like stop motion legos, the spot on voice acting (especially Will Arnett as a parody of Christian Bale's Batman), the pitch perfect song attached to the film, and the truly intellectual way it presents it's morality. The film subtly shows the need in life to have a balance between allowing creative freedom and setting rules that must be followed, a perfect midpoint between the extremes of totalitarianism and creatively free anarchy shown in the film. All of this from a movie that literally brands itself in the title to sell more toys.

7. Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
    How do you find the line between a pretentious film and deep film? It's a hard line to find, and is apparently very easy to cross. American Beauty was along that line, and so is Birdman. The two films are actually quite similar. It's not a comparison many others are making, but Bidman is a film about a middle aged white man going through a mid life crisis, it has an artistic style that sets it apart but isn't too edgy for mainstream audiences, it took home a slew of oscars including best picture (to the surprise of some) despite not being made of the same stuff as most best picture winners, and it's an odd mix of genuine human drama and dark comedy with a monologue filled screenplay...much like American Beauty.
    I make the comparison because, also like American Beauty, Birdman is becoming a subject of a lot of backlash based off of how much praise it's received over awards season. People started calling it pretentious and overrated, which makes sense. I mean, it's obviously trying too hard to win awards and be known as artistic. With it's opening shot off a comet that connects to the narrative through "mood" and it's unnecessary cinematography and big ambiguous statements that actually mean nothing and white people whining about nothing and a mysterious ending that means nothing, it could easily tire into being dated with worn out symbolism and technique much like American Beauty has. It has so many novelties with it's score, cinematography, storyline, it's like the creators are pulling out every stop to win awards.
    Yet now, in 2015, while this movie is not dated, it's still fascinating. It's central characters are engagingly real, especially real since some of the actors are essentially playing themselves: Michael Keaton in the role of an actor that has faded into obscurity after playing a superhero decades ago,  trying to reinvent his career in entertainment industry, and Edward Norton as an egotistical actor that's impossible to work with.  It's cinematography pulls you into the hectic world of theatre and the constant fast pace of the characters lives as they barely have time to keep up. It's score is intense and showy and only adds to the frenetic nature of a lot of the film. It's screenplay weaves a complex story with a mood of (as my friend refers to it) "depressed comedy" with bitter dark humor, cynical satire of entertainment, and trenchant drama with plenty emotional catharsis, all building to a haunting ending that leaves audiences debating what exactly happened long after they leave. Sure it's kinda pretentious right down to the title, sure it's a bunch of rich white people whining, sure it's award bait, but somehow, that adds to the crazy whirlwind this film is. And just like the ending, I'm not sure I can explain it.
   
6. Dear White People
   It ain't Selma that's the best film of the year about African American struggles, it's Dear White People. A large part of that is how it sets itself in the world of today. While films like Selma and 12 Years a Slave are always important as capsules reminding us of the true evils humanity can degrade to, Dear White People stands out by talking about what's happening today. It's a modernly intellectual, scaldingly hilarious, occasionally eerie representation of the muddled world of 21st century racial relations, so tactful in all of these elements that it deserves to be studied as a capsule of this time period for decades to come.
  As a freshman effort for writer/director Justin Simien, this film should have been a failure. It's a mini-political Epic, following the lives of 5 students on a University campus with equal screen time for all, attempting to subtly tackle many sides of casual and ironic racism in the 21st century. A comedy of this genre and caliber, especially under a brand new writer/director, would normally fall apart into a wordy and tangled mess. It's a bit overstuffed, sure, but Simien has written a brilliant screenplay that balances out so many stories and unexposed ideas about racism while retaining realistic dialogue that consistently draws out laughs. The characters are all well defined not only by the script but by all around noteworthy ensemble, refreshingly actors that aren't big Hollywood names in an ensemble that easily holds their own with the star power of Selma. It's most impressive that this film, like the best about social issues, politics, and the like, remembers to put some amount of focus on it's characters personal lives and their emotional problems, more story that Simien balances with ease. It's not just a cold, calculating film that angrily rants to you about problems of America, it's a film about people as well as ideas.
    My school is one of those schools that has a Native American as our mascot and calls itself "The Reservation" even though I'm pretty sure we have .0001% Native American population. The casual racism recently reared it's ugly head when students voted to have our spring dance be themed "Cowboys vs. Indians" (could've been Harry Potter themed but noooo...). While I stayed away from the dance with 50 foot pole, I heard from others that the dance was thankfully unpopular and there was a lack of brown face, but no matter what, it was still school approved and deemed ok to happen. I wish these events lined up with my viewing of this film so I would have that push to give it a proper full review, but alas I'm squeezing it in here. This film's central plot revolves around a party of the same breed, except the party in the film is ignorantly appropriating Black culture instead of Native American culture under the guise of irony. It was shocking seeing these all too real events portrayed in the film, especially with the real life news clippings during the credits about such racial appropriation parties. But then seeing it happen around me and seeing many not care just reminds me of how vital and how prescient films like Dear White People can be, and that this film is one of the singularly most important films to come out this year. 


5. Wild
    Out of all the films on this list, this is easily the most impeccably crafted. It's flawless, not as perfect in a sense of emotional appeal like the following four films, or even arguably the previous seven, but technically flawless. Which is not to say that Wild is robotic and doesn't work emotionally, it's an extremely cathartic, emotionally raw experience. The movie follows the real life story of Cheryl Strayed, who hiked 1,100 miles in order to meditate and free herself from a scarring past, and boy is it scarring. Every gritty dramatic bit of trauma that could possibly happen to a person, from addiction to abortion, happened to this woman, but I guess it takes a lot for someone to decide they need to hike 1,100 miles to get through it. The film beautifully weaves her present life of hiking the trail with her past in scattered scenes from childhood to early adulthood, over the course of two hours piecing together a brutal life. The dialogue shifts perfectly between lightly natural and heavily dramatic. And it all flows in an interestingly non-linear, non-hollywood fashion. Her journey on the Pacific Crest Trail focuses more on the variety of people she encounters for comedy and drama, the struggles that come with the isolationist, long distance hiking, and the beautifully shot scenery. There isn't a big dramatic breakout in the climax and then reassurance everything will be alright to tie it up in a neat bow. There's subtler emotions, real reactions and dialogue, and an ending that shows hope for a greater future without forcing itself to show all of it, this all being displayed perfectly by Witherspoon in an almost solo performance. She spends most of the movie alone, quiet, with nothing but the universe and her inner monologue to keep her company, and Witherspoon works quiet wonders with seemingly nothing, creating a full character that is constantly engaging. She's only elevated by the characters that drift in and out while on the trail and those that show up from her past, especially the oscar nominated Laura Dern. 
    Wild is a rawly magical film. There's no sense of escapism or much melodrama, but it is magical in how it craftily creates a rocky road of Strayed's life, piecing together a puzzle of piercing honesty and inspiring hope through it's sheer emotional power.

4. The Babadook
    Jennifer Kent has been around a while, but is new on the scene as a writer/director, and hopefully she sticks around in horror, because she just gets it. She understands that true horror is more than scenes that build up to jump scares, and it shows in how psychological and character involved the storyline and suspense are. The story centers around Amelia, who is still in a heavy depression after the untimely death of her husband, while trying to deal with her emotionally unstable, paranoid son...and an impending ominous monster. The way the monster ties into Amelia's depression, weaving in the symptoms and unveiling the emotions under the surface, testing the strained mother-son bond, makes The Babadook truly work as both a dramatic character study as well as a masterful horror film, all the way up to it's unorthodox ending that poetically defies usual horror conventions for something emotionally resonant. 
    And while it's already unusual for a horror film to be so emotionally captivating, it's doubly unusual to have a horror film so memorably acted. Most horror movies sell themselves solely on idea and plot, which Babadook is praiseworthy for, but this film is one of the few exceptions of passionate acting in horror. It's two leads, Amelia and her son Samuel, are almost the only people on screen for the whole 90 minutes, and require some extreme talent, and Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman deliver. Wiseman has one of the hardest challenges of any child actor I've seen and fully delivers, and I wouldn't be surprised if Davis' performance goes down as one of the iconic horror performances, up there with Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie in Carrie and Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Her character shifts between frail and vulnerable, bitter, hopeful, even fully animalistic near the end, are seamless and her looming depression quietly and subtly hangs over her the entire time.
    The scares and gloomy suspense of Babadook are all perfectly in place, largely due to an alignment of some brilliant technical elements. Listing off, the score is made to sound like a scratched, old record, echoey and distant, and is matched with the brilliant direction of grain-ifying the camera during the short appearances of the Babadook. There's even genius in the editing, especially in the initial reading of the sinister Babadook pop up book, horrifying solely through the intense quick cuts of uncomfortable close ups. The basic design of the Babadook is what stands out the most, it's ominous, all black with a defined and threatening outline. In horror, we're so blasé about being explicitly shown terrifying things, and Babdook responds to this norm with a design that gets under your skin in distorted sounds, distorted movements, and distorted looks. 
    The Babadook is a complete feat of horror, combining new elements (like emotional connections with the monster) with subversions on old elements (like the brilliant ending). It's a powerhouse from every conceivable angle, technical and emotional, and while it may exhaust you by the end in how relentless it is, it's completely worth the ride.
    
3. Boyhood
    Such an extraordinary movie through how ordinary it attempts to be. And Boyhood does go to great extents to be normal and represent everyday life. There's a complete lack of three act structure and there's dialogue that represents a reality that's not convoluted around plot, but most prominent is the use of the same actors over a course of 12 years. It's a risky choice (actors can die, pull out, child actors can grow up and not be talented) but adds so much to the story. There's an authenticity in it, watching the actors grow along with their characters, along with the quality of the camera, and along with American culture. If Boyhood's entire point is to give you a peek into the lives of real people in ways more intimate than a documentary ever could and make you consider the incredible nature of average lives, then it should be grounded in the reality of time, and writer/director Linklater does, brilliantly.
    Boyhood works on more than a (genius) gimmick though. It's realism truly comes out of it's screenplay. For a whole 3 hours, the story of Mason and Samantha and their mom and their Dad is told with no phoned in nostalgia, no cheesy dialogue, no melodrama even in situations that could easily be so. It feels wrong to even call the changes characters go through character arcs, because the movie is so disconnected from the ideas of plot and structure. Character changes occur, slowly and sometimes painfully, and so subtly that you might not even notice. It's never boring and monotonously slow, though. Boyhood is grounded in reality, but it's characters are so rounded, it's conversations so charming and conflicts so brutally honest, that it keeps your interest all throughout. The movie doesn't depend on "real for the sake of real" to keep your interest. And the actors only elevate the script to greater heights. There's a connection between every single person that appears on screen and a heart given to the words said that never makes you think about the script hiding behind the actor's mouths. Hawke, Arquette, and Coltrane have rightfully received loads of praise for their portrayals, but it's truly the whole ensemble, spread over 12 years. 
    There's not much to say about Boyhood besides it's just so real. It fills you with nostalgia, not just of the American culture subtly woven in, but of just living as life flashes before you. Never before, and maybe never again, will we get an equal representation of what it's like to just live.

2. Still Alice
    Very rarely will we receive a film this brutally intimate and powerful. Still Alice presents an unflinching look at the life of a linguistics professor who begins slipping into early onset Alzheimer's Disease, showing the true fear and depression Alice has of the uncontrollable, all as it forces itself into her mind. 
    It's a subtle screenplay, arching through the process of the changes in Alice Howland with heart wrenching grace. It's a movie where when you get to the ending scene, it's important to think back to the beginning, and truly realize how much has deteriorated in Alice in such a short time, what an envelopment the dementia has become, and how you might not have even noticed due to how realistically gradually it was all paced out. 
Gradual and slow, yet still dropping the emotional and physical bombs and presenting perfected human connection and conversations. Still Alice's strong screenplay always finds ways to keep you consistently interested and in a sense of dread, even with the directions the story could go in being very limited. We know what's going to happen, we know she's going to forget more and more of her life, but it still gnarls your heart every time there's a new development, without plunging into soap opera territory.
    A large part of that emotional effect is the brilliant ensemble work. The main ensemble of five in the Howland family bring to life the nuanced personalities of real people, the healthy, usual WASP family bond being puled apart in the few ensemble scenes we get. On a smaller scale from that, Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin show the hardest crumbling relationship. They easily establish the chemistry of a comfortably married, still passionate couple early on in the film (chemistry made possible, yet again, by a remarkably natural screenplay). It makes Alice's regression into Alzheimer's all the more depressing, seeing their aged, perfected relationship torn apart by something unexpected and uncontrollable, exposing new feelings from them and forcing tough decisions. But on an even smaller scale, Julianne Moore delivers one of the singular best dramatic performances I've seen in any film ever...like ever. The part demands a lot, to show a slow collapse of Alice's personality and life as it is overtaken by her disability, for her to be completely vulnerable and emotionally naked to the audience and her screen partners, and to do it all in a movie that's almost one long close up of her face the whole time. She shows every nuance and subtlety in her physicality and voice with what can only be described as heartbreaking perfection.
    Subtle really is the best way to describe Still Alice's beauty. The brilliantly subtle cinematography that is intensely intimate and blurs when Alice's world is blurring around her. The brilliantly subtle screenplay that creates perfected characters with the most real dialogue a movie can give you and sets up the most crushing and non-melodramatic scenarios for its main character, resembling the reality of Alzheimer's. And of course, the brilliantly subtle performances, especially of the central character by Moore, who deserves every praise and award given to her and more. It's still an important film, more than just a drama to pointlessly depress you out of your mind. Well it's kinda that, but it, in all it's melancholy, inspires such hope and positivity: to live in and appreciate the moment, to remember those with any mental disability are still human and treat them as such, and to cherish all the memories and knowledge we have, because as this brutal mirror to reality showed, you never know when it will all slip away.

1. Guardians of the Galaxy

    Every year. Every year I put what I consider a complete masterwork a film at #2 in favor of the quirkier, less perfected film that gets #1. Moonrise Kingdom over Life of Pi in 2012, Gravity and 12 Years a Slave in 2013 (although now I consider Short Term 12 the best movie of 2013, seeing it long after making the list), and now Guardians of the Galaxy over Still Alice in 2014. 
    Because Guardians of the Galaxy is not a perfect movie at all, while other films put in lower spots definitely are. It's villain is completely underdeveloped, Glenn Close and John C. Reilly are barely in it and essentially do nothing, I don't think I'll ever get over the fact that I waited throughout all of the credits to get a scene with Howard the Duck. But...oh my god, how I missed having adrenaline fueled fun while watching a movie. I still love The Dark Knight, The Avengers, Iron Man, those darker and grittier comic book adaptations, but it's so incredibly refreshing to see a film so outside of the norm of the Comic book film renaissance. It’s never brooding or grisly, rarely even serious about itself.  Guardians is simply a film with the unusual goal of being a lighthearted action film that wants the audience to laugh and smile the whole time, and it goes above and beyond that goal easily. Every joke lands, every character connects, and every visual strikes. Out of all of Marvel’s films, it’s Guardians that has some of it’s most likable characters in it’s main ensemble of five, from the cocky yet grounded Starlord to the cuddly amazingness that is Groot, each of our main characters are given emotional heft and a surprising amount of dimension, on top of hilarious personalities that bounce against each other perfectly. If Dark Knight perfected the sophisticated and mature dialogue in superhero movies, Guardians has perfected witty banter and comedic dialogue in the same. The jokes, which are all fairly smart are never badly made references and low-brow humor, consistently induce belly laughs, and are so well written and energetically delivered that they truly carry the movie smoothly over its few bumpy spots. Although the look of the film, saturated colors and bright neons, help as well, making the movie visually pop and feel like a retro comic book
    Guardians also has one of the most synchronized and together ensemble casts in recent Hollywood memory. Chris Pratt as Starlord, Bradley Cooper as Rocket Raccoon, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Dave Bautista as Drax, and especially Vin Diesel in his oscar worthy role as Groot all come together. In any scene involving any dialogue or action between any of them, they deliver. It's fascinating to look at the wildly different Hollywood personalities behind the characters: the everyman turned star Chris Pratt, action starlet Zoe Saldana, the oscar nominated, the rising unknown, and the...Diesel...the personalities play in subtle ways and mix with the defined personalities of the characters. But it's not just seeing these varying actor backgrounds that add an engaging layer to the ensemble, it's the genuine connection the actors clearly have. It feels like they're more than just actors forced to work together, like there actually is a bond there. Wether it was all forced or not, it was seamlessly done, and brought out a lot of the movie's heart.
    So no, Guardians isn't a perfect film, one of the most flawed on the list actually, but there's a heart, soul, and passion to it that you don't get out of Hollywood action a lot, and the genuine efforts to be individual with it's offbeat comedy and bright neon colors shines through. Every film on this list is great, but Guardians of the Galaxy is so enjoyable and beautifully, unabashedly irreverent, that it's hard not to instantly fall in love with it in the first five minutes and want to return to it again and again after it's over. It's one of those films that you feel blue after it ends cause you want to stay in the world, keep following the characters, and that is why it just might be the best film of 2014.

Into The Woods

    It's incredibly easy to find a laundry list of flaws in Into the Woods, yet it's so incredibly likable. The bigger problem is that it's an adaptation of a source material I don't know, so it's hard to determine what's at fault with the musical and the movie. When it comes to most adaptations, it's better to review it as it's own product, since it's unfair to expect everyone to know the source material going in and a movie that changes elements from the source material can still be great in its own right. There are select case, like The Giver and Lorax movie, where the adaptations expose the Hollywood system and have to be analyzed as such, to understand what drastic changes Hollywood convolutes just to get the movie to sell to major demographics, but that's only extreme cases. Usually, my mantra is: The faults of an adaptation are that of the adaptation only, and any flaw from the source material should be fixed in the adaptation.

     That being said, Into the Woods is pretty sloppy, on a basic level. The large appeal and mass of devout fans probably has to do with the innovative story itself, the basic idea of twisting fairytales into something new, here taking 4 different popular fairytales and tying them together, centralizing it all through one couple's quest to parenthood. The idea of reinventing our favorite timeless children's stories into something darker is always anticipated and usually appreciated. Take the overwhelming success of Wicked: The Musical and the fairly high success of Maleficent even if the actual quality of the two isn't that great. The same applies here; it's a brooding yet mocking, slightly emotional twist on immortal tales that rides into success mostly on that. It all feels so middle of the road, unchallenging to the audience so they can easily like it.
    The script is never bad, per se, it's just not as overwhelmingly creative as it could've been. It's organized, easy to follow, frenetically paced to keep interest, and it does twist interestingly after the plot is seemingly over, even though that's the point where the film crumbles a bit. Yet it's not incredible: the plot involving Rapunzel, while it does humanize the villain of the witch, is scattered badly throughout the course of the film, very shoehorned in. Same goes to the plot involving Little Red Riding Hood, which seems to end very early on, while the other fairytale characters stay all throughout the movie. Red disappears for most of the film and then just becomes relevant again later on. The rest of the stories are consistently told, but a bit uneven. Important deaths that occur are flashed by oddly unceremoniously. The dark elements of the original fairytales feel out of place mostly, like it's trying to say "yeah, we totally know the original dark Grimm stories an we're super smart" without actually knowing how to smoothly work it in.
    The tone is not as haphazardly uneven as might be expected, yet still uneven enough to notice, to take you out of the movie. Characters like Prince Charming and Red feel like they're constantly winking to the audience to make fun of their stories, while other characters subtly find flaws of logic or play it straightly altogether. It's imbalanced, which is a flaw within itself, but it never even tries to go to the extremes that it occasionally dives into, to venture out of it's own little safety zone. It feels like the creators are scared to try something risky by never leaning toward a fully developed dark drama or a full satire of the stories it's based on. The middle of the road execution works well enough,. Jokes are usually funny and dramatic points usually kept interest. It's entirely watchable, but it feels like with such a creative endeavor of a premise,  there should've been more of a confidence to drive through complete comedy or complete drama, instead of playing as safe as it does.
    And the inconsistencies of development within the characters only adds to the uneven confused mess. Yet again, Red and Prince Charming are cartoonish, it feels like the two of them are almost in different movie sometimes because they're acting is generally more parodical than others. However, along with Jack, they're also more defined characters than others, (funny how the children are more developed than the adults). I can describe they're qualities a lot easier than the likes of the Baker and The Baker's Wife and Cinderella. That's another way the movie plays it safe, the characters aren't nearly developed enough to make it a dramatic character piece or satirical enough to be a full parody. The two main children, the brave and cocky Jack and the sassy, sneaky Red have personality in abundance, and so do the supporting characters, with the witch being surprisingly complex, if she's not explored nearly enough. The adult protagonists though, are simply underdeveloped. Never to the point that they're obviously cardboard, but never elevated to the point where they're truly lovable. The many conversations between the Baker and his wife are an example of this, as usually the points where they run into each other are for plot exposition and basic, basic character conflict, but there's a lack of personality, dramatic intrigue, or witty banter. The occasional songs relating directly to the personal conflicts of the couple and Cinderella add slight emotional connection, but are not nearly as deep as much as just cute. It isn't UNinteresting, but still plays it safe.
    What elevates those characters beyond "watchable if uninteresting" to "mostly engaging" are the performances. This is a true testament to the power of great performances for taking such average characterizations and creating dimensional characters that I found myself genuinely wanting to follow. Emily Blunt (Baker's Wife) and James Corden (Baker) have incredible chemistry and create as real and entertaining a couple as they could given not much to work with. Meryl Streep is a surprisingly likable half-villain with sensational emotional power that shines through her singing. It's Meryl though, she can only be sensational. Anna Kendrick is always engaging to watch, and even Johnny Depp in his short amount of time on screen is perfectly creepy. Although Red (Lilla Crawford) and Prince Charming (Chris Pine) feel off the realistic tone of the other performances, they're always entertaining in their own right. Similarly on that note of Red Riding Hood, she and Daniel Huttlestone as Jack are absolutely fantastic. They both have experience in large musical theatre and film parts and it shows. They are pros that hit every joke and dramatic point right, creating fully formed characters and easily holding their own to adults with equally large parts. They're more than just "cute" child stars, with "cute" being the standard we usually hold child stars to be. It's an incredibly talented cast that create an entertaining, full film from an unshapely, awkward script.
    What also manages to carry the movie through is the beautiful style. The lighting design is consistently beautiful, with some theatrical moments shown solely though intense spotlights and washes. The costumes are all thoroughly pretty and memorable, and the scenic design is elaborate and creates a consistent fantasyland. Both technical elements are never afraid to be grimy, which is surprising considering this is a Disney production. They create a town that's believable as an actual forest village with poor, ramshackle houses and unclean streets instead of something straight out of Fantasyland. What's even more surprising in this Disney production is the restraint on CGI. Take the live action fantasy reboots of previous popular entities that Disney has started releasing, all what I like to call the Reboot fantasy" films: Alice In Wodnerland, Oz: The Great and Powerful, Maleficent, etc. They're fantasy films absolutely laden with CGI, making them "pretty" but completely boring, repetitive, and weak after seeing it so much. Yet in Into The Woods, Disney seems to have finally learned its lesson of not forcing it on every film.  It's only used in the rarest of cases and actually adds to the magic since it's not constantly thrown in your face. The magic in the CGI means a lot more when used in moderation, it comes across as actually epic in comparison to the everyday real world the set and costume design create.
    Of course, this is a musical, so what's more important than the music? The songs, or more specifically the orchestrations, are easily one of the worst parts of the film. The lyrics range from good to extraordinary, it is Sondheim after all. The music to accompany it though, not so extraordinary. It really all sounds like one bland song, there's barely a catchy melody in the whole thing. Not much else to say about that, if the music was more memorable there would be. There are exceptions: the opening song is ominous yet upbeat, Agony is tearfully hilarious, Your Fault is incredible in its sheer complexity and frenetic energy, and the Finale is a haunting and poignant ending with a thoroughly memorable theme statement in the chorus. They all primarily work on the strength of the lyrics, but I find myself humming the main choruses of those as I write their titles, so there's something.
    There's a lot to say about Into the Woods, obviously, and I'm not sure I know exactly what to say, or that I said it all in this lengthy review. I didn't even touch on the laundry list of random little flaws present in the movie. The story feels haphazard tonally yet the movie fears being too haphazard to attempt anything outside of safety. The bottom layer of the film, the script and musical numbers, wave between great parts and awful parts. It's inconsistent yet still it's hard to hate the inconsistency, because all the layers on top of it hide the flaws of the bottom layer well. Every technical element: costumes, effect use, lighting design, set design are all perfect, and the passionate acting, even in the worst parts, has a gleeful energy to it. It's a very mixed bag, but there are more positives in the bag than negatives, and even the negatives are mild. In the scheme of "Reboot land" films from Disney, Into the Woods shows vast improvement. After the mediocre Alice in Wonderland, the plunge with mystically terrible Oz, and then the slight incline with the ok Maleficent, Into the Woods inclines higher, standing as pretty good. Let's just hope Cinderella shows further improvement.

Note after seeing Cinderella: It did not show much improvement.

Nightcrawler

It's a breath of fresh air in the cliché, boringly mopey genre of the realistic thriller. A tense, cynical, grittily real breath of fresh air, but one nonetheless. The story centers around Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), a slightly off and almost robotic man that's extremely desperate to get a job. One night, he sees an independent camera crew capture footage of a car crash, planning to sell it to a news station, he decides to follow along. He begins his new career of filming crime and disaster scenes right as the action is taking place with a crappy camcorder, a crappy car, and a fidgety, broke assistant named Rick (Riz Ahmed) with a crappy GPS, leading to a road that drives Bloom from slightly off to completely psychotic.
    The film takes it's already solid, original basis and creates an absolute powerhouse of a personal journey deeper into a man's insanity, social satire of the news industry, and twisted black comedy. A completely real psychopath is created in the character of Bloom, through brilliant writing that subtly transforms the character throughout, without being overly melodramatic with his level of insanity or making the twists of the character's logic feel out of his range and forced. The character is only perfected by Gyllenhaal's performance, who brings an eerie life to Bloom. He completely gives in to the character and never lets up, fitting into the unnatural dialogue with an ease that makes Bloom feel like any other "slightly off" person you know if they just tipped over the edge.
    What furthers the realism and fresh thrills of the film are the cinematography and music. None of the camerawork uses overtly dramatic shadows, none of the colors feel tinted or edited to create a scary atmosphere, and it never overuses the shaky cam technique to be intense, it simply feels natural.  None of the scenery is unrealistically clean or dirty, none of the blood and seedy backstreets are glamorized. The real-world feel is continued with the camera always being from the perspective of our main characters, so when they're outsiders on the action, filming from a safe distance, the cameras stay at that distance as well. It's eerie with how reminiscent it all is off what we do in fact see of crime scene on TV, and that's not even touching the footage of Bloom's that shown on the news stations for stories. Even the use of real products displayed on billboards, sides of buildings continues this. They're never prominently displayed as product placement, but logos for Chase, Facebook, and others will show up for scattered moments in the movie and work to keep the movie in our world.
    The music is riskily imaginative, adding a dimension that further separates Nightcrawler from the usual Hollywood "gritty" thriller. When Bloom does something horrifying that further sinks him into his job and therefore sinks him into his insanity as well, the music doesn't match the creepy tone of the moment. No, instead the music consistently plays as the soundtrack inside of Bloom's mind. That means that whenever Bloom does something deranged like, say, moving a dead body under a streetlight to get a better shot before the cops even show up, the music isn't a terrifying drone. Bloom is smiling the whole time he's moving the body, realizing how far ahead he can get in his job with what he's doing, so the music is matching his mindset with a triumphant melody playing the whole time. And that upbeat feel to the music is genuinely more creepy than any downbeat instrumentation could have been.
    There are other elements to the plot that excel the movie beyond a straightforward suspense film. It's a satire of the modern-day standards of television news, or lack thereof. It's all well delivered, such as when we the news station use footage that we know Bloom got illegally and highly immorally, but oddly resembles footage that shows up on the news in real life. The carelessness the main news executive (Renee Russo) has to how the footage was received, and also the blasé way she explains what crimes attract viewers and which ones didn't is also on prominent display. There's a cruel comedy that comes out of it and how blatantly Bloom wants to exploit the system. He doesn't hide his motives to manipulate. He directly states to Russo's character at one point that he wants to be in a relationship with her just to go farther with his business, and those moments create a sadly sick representation of how the world of cold hard business works when you pull back the layers of bull crap.
    Nightcrawler is a bright spot in a dying sub genre overrun by "Taken" knock offs. It's sleekly filmed, fully original and ambitious, effectively written and paced, and led by a powerhouse performance by Gyllenhaal. So go out and support this indie looking hollywood film. Because the trailer for Taken 3 (sorry, "Tak3n", aren't they so clever) came before this movie, and lord knows Nightcrawler needs your support more.

 

The Giver

    So maybe it wasn't the worst movie. Maybe if I had never read and loved the book, and went into this movie totally ignorant of it, then I could've found something to like. And reviewing an adaption is a tricky thing, having to look at it as both an adaption of its original source and a movie in itself. Of course, I've seen a lot of movies in my life that are adaptions of books, plays, etc. where I don't know much about the source material. So I could, and have in the past, come out of these movies and loved them while fans of the source might be justifiably angry if they're nothing like the original. And I can imagine someone might've enjoyed this movie if the book The Giver had not been an integral part of their childhood or they had never realized the poetic, simple yet stylistic genius of the book.
     As an adaption, it straight out sucks. It's pointless analyzing everything wrong about it in that way, because if I did you'd be reading this review for the next week. It essentially fails at all points plot wise, character wise, even moral wise it fails pretty hard by slapping on this contrived pat hollywood ending that (surprise of all surprises) doesn't happen in the book or resemble what the book was going for. It makes the whole issue that destroyed mankind seem like an easy fix. Well the ending from the book kind of happens in the movie, but they stuff a lot more in just to get a perfect happy Hollywood ending for everybody cause that's what we all want, isn't it?
    It fails as an adaption mainly because The Giver isn't the type of book that translates well to film in the first place. I know it's hard to wrap our heads around the idea of a popular Young Adult novel not being a good fit for a movie nowadays, but it's really not. The book is a very simple story with simple characters and simple relationships that doesn't dive much into intricate world building or constant action packed conflict either. It soars primarily on its poetic writing style and how that helps us dive into the psychology of the main character and his personal journey. What I'm saying is it's basically nothing like The Hunger Games.
    A novel writing style (which is a lot different than a scriptwriting style, trust me on that) doesn't translate to film, it physically can't unless someone narrates everything that happens. So once you take that away, your left with a very slow moving, non-actionous, non-climactic, small story that doesn't work as a big action packed sci-fi Hollywood film.
    Really the book The Giver is just an unfortunate victim of circumstance, not just in the fact that the story's a bit dated now because we've seen the "rebel against the dystopian future story" for teenagers a lot in the last 7 years. The Giver is also unfortunate because it's still popular today...yes that's unfortunate for the book, hear me out.
    The Giver came out in the early 90s, over 20 years before The Hunger Games came about and basically changed everything. It wasn't written in that fad of "dystopia" novels that has recently become popular, which is why its writing style and its story are nothing like those books, it's not written to easily fit the Hollywood movie cookie cutter like those books are. However, it's still popular among that same crowd that likes those books. I read The Giver and loved it, a lot of people I know have read it and loved it, and those same people  have liked or loved Hunger Games, Divergent, Maze Runner, Matched, Uglies, and more. I'm sure that's the same all across the nation. So it just makes sense to big Hollywood producers to make a movie out of this critically acclaimed book that is popular with a market they've already cornered with other successful films, and a book that seems to be, on the very very surface, like those other successful films.
    So you now know why The Giver can't work and doesn't work as a film, you know why it happened anyway, but what about the actual end product? For in the end, an adaption is not just an adaption, as I stated before it's a film for all, even those that don't know the source material. So what if we disconnect everything wrong about The Giver as an adaption, which is everything, and look at it as a film on it's own? (That is, even though this movie is priding itself on being an adaption and trying to get fans of the book to pay money to see it, which is its main goal as an adaption of a popular, acclaimed work.) Well, there's nothing truly awful I can say about it, but there's nothing great either. They had a simple, small, non-epic story that is very much against the current Hollywood teen fad and were forced to make it the opposite to draw in more crowds. Because of that, they get the worst of both. There are dimensional characters and relationships, sure, but nothing that feels like something we haven't seen before. The acting isn't bad, but nobody's amazing either. There is a futuristic sci-fi setting, but it looks the same as countless other movies. There are a few scenes and shots that show some vision, style, and memorability, but are never pushed as far as they could have been. The whole world of The Giver comes across as any other dystopia we've seen, except without the diversity via teens fighting to the death, people being forced in factions, etc. It moves at a constantly frenetic pace, so I can't say it was the most boring movie, but it still felt like other dystopia movies I've seen, without anything to set it apart.
    The Giver is a square block, and Hollywood is the impatient toddler trying to force it through the circle shaped hole. Maybe if that toddler got a knife and worked really hard to whittle the square into a circle, there'd be a good fit. As is though, it's a disgusting wreck of an adaption that has no business associating itself with the book it's "based on", and as a movie in itself it's fairly dull and shallow with no original substance of its own. And with the next big YA dystopia book adaption being The Maze Runner, well at least with that we know Hollywood is putting the circle shaped block through the circle shaped hole.

Peter Pan Predicaments: Return to Neverland

    So Disney made a theatrical sequel to Peter Pan. That sentence keeps repeating through my mind, it feels odd knowing that it's actually true. And it gets even more surreal when you discover that this comes from a barrage of sequels, prequels and mid-quels that was consistently coming from Disney for roughly 15 years. Even more surreal is that this wasn't the actual Walt Disney Animation Studio that made these movies, it was a whole separate branch whose specific job was to provide us with mostly straight to video, TOTALLY necessary additions to their source material such as:  "Bambi hangs out with his dad", "The Fox and the Hound join a band", and in the case here, one of two released in theaters by the by, "Wendy's daughter gets taken to Neverland and has to find her childlike nature so she can fly back home". Yes, it's basically the same plot as Hook, that'll come up later.

    The basic set up for the main character Jane, Wendy's daughter who's 8-ish I think, is that she grew up surrounded by war (yeah the movie's set in WW2).  She forced herself to mature and lost her childlike nature very quickly, and also stopped believing in Peter Pan. Fine enough set up it would seem, with Jane having to learn how to be a child again...until the movie screws it up. Badly. Because Jane in the beginning is a completely likable character. She goes out to do chores for her family in the dangerous wartime, she listens to the radio to keep updated on current events of the war, she selflessly got her brother a present...but we're still supposed to feel that isn't good enough because the present was socks. And the movie gives her a completely great personality on top of that: she's confident, cheerful and respectful. Even on top of that, the movie gives her more validation to be the way she is, because a little earlier we see her dad tell her to take care of her mom and brother before he goes off to war. Yet even though the movie forces her in a situation where she has to mature, and she responds appropriately, Return is still absolutely persistent to get us to think she's an extremely flawed character that needs to be fixed.
    This whole character arc ties in interestingly with the well known, well liked morals from Peter Pan.  As we've discussed, people have taken the moral of never growing up from Disney's Peter Pan and the broadway musical. To a larger extent, Disney, one of the singularly most prominent and influential companies in the world, has marketed themselves around that same idea of keeping child like innocence. Return attempts to take the safe route by using a character arc that doesn't challenge the moralistic clout that's already exists with the Peter Pan reputation and the company making the film, but it accidentally reveals the terrible underbelly of the "never grow up" moral. The movie influences kids to side against Jane for no other reason than she acts more grown up than other kids, all to push the moral that kids that they should just stay completely carefree of problems in leu of actually helping or doing something, even if the situation calls for it. It fits in with that "never grow up" moral in the worst way possible.
    It seems like such an easy fix to turn it from terrible to acceptable that it's maddening. All it had to do was make a definite clear flaw that had to be fixed, but it doesn't do it, so the movie is accomplishing nothing and making an awful lesson to push on kids. The only time Jane shows any actual negativity is this one argument she has with her mom and her little brother Danny, who does believe in Peter Pan...an argument she instantly feels sorry for, so that's pretty pointless. Something needs to change about her character, maybe she should be not as proactive in helping her family and the movie should cut out what her dad said, maybe she should be more forceful toward Danny to grow up, something so that the movie isn't quite giving us the terrible moral that it is here.
    So the movie awkwardly suffers through its set up for the character arc, which does pay off at the end in the way we all expect, although we'll get to that later. But after spending a whole 3 paragraphs talking about the compelling terribleness of the first 10 minutes, the movie must get even worse when Peter Pan actually shows up, right? ...Well would you believe me if I said the movie gets better? Or if I said it gets better than the first movie in some respects? Because it does.
    The argument Jane has with her mom and Danny comes at the very end of the exposition, before Captain Hook kidnaps her, believing she's Wendy, as bait for Peter. From there on, the plot becomes Jane needing to find her childlike nature with the help of Peter and the lost boys so she can fly, complicated by Captain Hook manipulating Jane to help him capture Peter and Tinkerbell slowly dying because Jane said she doesn't believe in fairies.
    If you're able to detach the exposition of the arc from the actual arc, then Return becomes much more watchable. Jane settles a tiny bit more into becoming an unhappy stick in the mud once in Neverland, so when she changes into more childlike it feels like there's a point to the arc happening...I guess, I mean the exposition still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. And compared to Hook, the arc's a lot better. It does happen very quickly like in Hook, but I can forgive this movie for it because it's a kid instead of what's supposed to be a mature adult and the movie barely scrapes 70 minutes anyway, it has to pace itself quickly. Also, unlike Disney's Peter Pan, it actually completes the full character arc it sets up, instead of doing it half heartedly so it doesn't amount to anything...It's sad I feel the need to give a movie the compliment that it tells a complete story. The arc is still a bad idea for an arc because of how it's set up, but the movie gets better about what the arc should be.
    But what's really interesting about this film is Peter and how he develops throughout. He doesn't have an arc per se, but he still is more humanized than the first movie and learns to an extent throughout the story. For instance, at one point he and the lost boys destroy Jane's journal that meant a lot to her, and she gets upset. Peter genuinely feels bad and later on apologizes. Also, Peter isn't always the hero. At the end, Peter is the one that gets captured, and Jane is the one that comes to the rescue, and Peter is willing to accept a girl saving him. Yes, the humanization makes it as detached from the cold heartless anti-hero Peter of J.M. Barrie's story as it can get. However considering what Disney's Peter Pan is, I'm really glad they made him not the perfect infallible hero that he was in the first movie, that there's an attempt to do something new with a character we all know and make him a little more dimensional, while still keeping the fun cockiness intact.
    On top of attempting something slightly new with Peter, it continues with showing his obtuse confusion with girls and love, and shows it more. Probably the best scene in the first movie is when Peter and Wendy first meet. Wendy has a clear crush on Peter but Peter doesn't realize and doesn't know how to react to how unlike boys these girls are. Peter and Jane also have a certain chemistry, both are strong willed but also have an interest in each other, Peter especially having a perplexed fascination with this girl who acts like a grown up. It results in memorable little scenes like where Peter tries to say how great he is but Jane playfully shuts him down, or when they awkwardly talk over each other so Peter shoves his hands over Jane's mouth and quickly rambles out what he has to say, among others. Honestly they're pretty adorable. It hints at a little budding romance between the two that never fully blossoms, similar to the first, and their whole relationship is fairly entertaining to follow...while of course still a film aimed at very little kids.
    But just because the film gets better and just because it does better than the first in some departments than the first doesn't mean it's a great film, I struggle to even say it's a good film. It has a few interesting character developments and a bubbly relationship sprinkled in it's short run time, but it's very clear how half-heartedly the film was made cause kids are stupid and you don't need to work much to entertain them. There's a complete lack of atmosphere from the first movie, the jokes are mostly lazily done cartoon jokes and Peter makes groan worthy puns, the songs are insanely boring and the pop ballads are absolutely cringe worthy, the movie doesn't trust kids to remember something that happened 10 minutes ago so there are a lot of pointless flashbacks placed in, the crocodile that chases Hook gets replaced by an octopus that pops its eyes in motion which just why, and speaking of Hook, he is nowhere near as enjoyable to watch or as menacing as in the first film, just a really boring retread. Also there's a whole subplot about Tinkerbell dying and Jane needs to believe in fairies to make her live. This is what the movie says is Peter's main motivation to make Jane more childlike, even though by the next scene he just seems to want to do it because he likes Jane and isn't deceiving her for that ulterior motive, so the whole thing seems pretty pointless. There is just a lot in this film that shows passionless, fairly dumb filmmaking.
    So the movie gets to its end and I came to the basic conclusion that it's mostly a cheap, lazy pandering kids movie that tries to be innocent, but naively, ignorantly shows everything wrong with the "never grow up" morality...until this last scene happened.
    I know the review should be over, it's plenty long enough and I've already given all of the pros and cons, but I need to talk about this scene. So I'll link it below, watch it before reading the rest of the review please.

    This scene is absolutely perfect. Admittedly that's probably out of my unnatural obsession with Peter Pan to love this scene, but it's incredibly memorable and new. It seems to spit right in the face of the cold "we all have to grow up and stop being playful children"lesson from J.M. Barrie's story, but also seems to do the same, if to a lesser extent, to the "never grow up" moral that surrounds Disney's Peter Pan, and it's beautiful. The scene essentially features an adult Wendy telling Peter that while she grew up like she eventually had to, she still has some of the innocence from when she was younger. It not only goes against the two original stories primary lesson to an extent, it also does the same lesson from Hook a thousand times better. The basic lesson in Hook, to recall, was also about keeping childlike innocence as you grow up. If you also recall from Hook, they do the lesson really badly because in the end Peter Banning, an adult, becomes this unrealistically hyperactive man-child. Wendy is played well throughout the whole movie as a mature responsible mother that still has a great imagination and joyous spirit, and that's on display very much in the last scene. It's not just the idea that makes this scene stand out, it's executed pretty damn well. It uses simply effective imagery, an understated score,  and Peter and Wendy's conversation really feels true to how the two would really talk years later, and that's hard to capture since nobody thinks about Wendy as a grown up. It's fan indulgence, sure, but not nearly as much as it could've been, and surprisingly, it's emotionally earnest in how true to the original characters it feels. It's a new, well presented lesson that attempts to change the whole game about what morals we associate with Peter Pan, and is yet another sign of humanizing Peter and having him gradually learn to accept reality. It's a great note to end the movie on. The main morality tale might be pretty bad, but I feel this 80 seconds almost cancel that out with it's emotional power.
    So how does it feel, Hook, knowing that this rinky-dink, rushed out little cartoon did the same basic plot as you, and also presented a grown up with childlike nature in the end, and did it better than you? That's definitely a big reason I included this movie in Peter Pan month, but would I suggest it? I guess so, but I'm not sure. Return is definitely a confused film that has left me confused of what I think about it. There's a lot of good and bad that mixes together here. It's more like interesting moments shining through the cracks of a mostly heartless (and sometimes brainless) film. With all of the flaws: the jokes, songs, some of the plot, Captain Hook, the terrible character arc set up, you can almost see the money signs in the producers eyes as they clearly cared more about getting butts in seats than genuinely entertaining the kids attached to those butts. It's a hard movie to like, but there's still bits here and there. Peter's balance between cockiness and humanizing, his relationship with Jane, the beautiful ending scene, I even liked the lost boys, who were all charming to watch throughout and felt true to the spirit of the original. And Jane's character arc, even if it's a terrible idea that might have a bad influence on kids, could've been done worse. At least it ends on this ambiguous note where she doesn't stop working for the good of her family, even if the movie set that up weirdly as a flaw. All in all, there are worse kids movie out there, and this mixed bag of morality is still better than other options *cough cough* Hook *cough cough*. So while you have to suffer through some overly pandering kiddy elements, if you or your kids are into Peter Pan, I'd say give this a try.
    Now if you excuse me, I'm going to rethink the life choices that led me up to giving a sprawling, overly analytical review to a rushed out Disney sequel that nobody remembers...