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THE GRANDMASTER Is Lost in Translation

Culture is a thing worthy of celebration, not a placeholder. It’s a proud artifact of a civilization that distinguishes its unique place in the world while offering a respectful homage to the past. In large part, world cinema is dictated by Hollywood but the cross-pollination taking place here crosses a line in the sand, using cultural differences as a means to gut and sanitize a film that was once called great. This Americanized cut clearly is not.

Foreign films like Amelie aim to invite us into a distinctly different world that works not in spite of their cultural inconsistencies with our more familiar Hollywood fare but because of them. Amelie wasn’t hacked down, re-spliced and formatted to fit an American audience ideal of three-act basics. It was perfect just the way it was.

Likewise, Alfonso Cuaron‘s Y Tu Mamá También didn’t bandage its decadent carnal acts. It wore its overtly sexualized heart on its sleeve, regardless of the puritan American mainstream who just so happened to gulp it up. We didn’t need a redux where everything just so happens to work out in the end because we didn’t need it. Similarly, Guillermo del Toro‘s bleak Pan’s Labyrinth wasn’t sterilized with a storybook ending. No, we couldn’t wash the gritty, greasy afterbirth nightmares we get from 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days out of our brains and yet it’s a film that would have been laughed right out of the studio system. It works because it showed us something different, something distinctly non-American.

This brings us to The Grandmaster, a film referred to by the droves who saw it open at the Berlin International Film Festival as a “masterpiece.” I can tell you frankly, what I saw was no masterpiece. The narrative shifts felt wooden, character movement is frantic and often ungrounded and an attempt to simplify two life stories into one 108-minute film reaches too far. There are moments of grandeur, some stunning camera work and often interesting focal points for the masterful kung-fu battles splayed throughout the film but these are overshadowed by a disjointed narrative and increasing sense of something missing. The only rational conclusion is that in hopping from one continent to another, something has been lost in translation.

 

Produced over the course of three years (filming itself dictating almost two years), director Wong Kar-wai admits that he himself took a scissor to the original 130 minute cut to make it more “Americanized.” Although he stands behind the select-copy-deleting of entire portions of his film, we have to wonder what qualifies a Hong Kong native as an arbiter for what works best for an American audience. Over at The Huffington Post, Wai had a chance to speak out and express his stamp of approval on this US cut of the film:

“As a filmmaker, let me say that the luxury of creating a new cut for U.S. audiences was the opportunity to reshape it into something different than what I began with — a chance one doesn’t always get as a director and an undertaking much more meaningful than simply making something shorter or longer.”

Here, Kar-wai admits how his reshaping impacts the final result in far more ways than run-time. What he fails to realize is just how much he has castrated his film by attempting to perfect it for an audience that he doesn’t understand.

For a parallel from the past on how edits can entirely change the meaning of a film, take for example Ridley Scott‘s Blade Runner. Now often called a “sci-fi masterpiece,” Scott’s original vision was buried under a studio-ordered voice-over ending that made the conclusion seem more suitable and close-booked than the vaguely ambiguous and much more thought-provoking original cut. Thankfully, that edit was largely redacted and Scott’s far superior vision was able to shine through to his audiences via his much-celebrated Director’s Cut. What Blade Runner proves is that even a fragment as short as a minute can change the entire course of a film. Accordingly, it is without question that a re-cut removing a whole 22 minutes can morph a masterpiece into just another lukewarm kung-fu film.

 

Another flagrant case of authorial manipulation is Anthony Burgess‘s fiery novel A Clockwork Orange. In the American version of the novel, the last chapter was excised entirely – cut clean from the book and swept away. For those unfamiliar with the novel, it involves a young, rapey ruffian, Alex, who is institutionalized in experimental hopes of ridding him of his ultra-violent ways (involving methods too extreme even for the US government). Much lo and behold, after all of this course-correction, Alex eventually returns to a life of debauchery and evil doing. This is where the American-version of the book and the still fantastic Stanley Kubrick film end.

With this conclusion, we’re meant to take away that you can’t change a bird’s feathers permanently just by painting them a different color. We get it. But the original novel jumps forward a ways into the future where Alex just suddenly grows out of being such a mean-spirited douche, entirely changing the message so precisely lain into the framework of the story. It says, “Change comes only from within, never from an outside source forcing it upon you.” But those conniving publishers thought this was too much flip-flopping for an American audience to comprehend and instead reshaped the message and shifted the entire cultural zeitgeist revolving around this great work of art.

Returning to The Grandmaster, even though having the approval of director Kar-wai frames the whole re-editing process in a less authoritarian light than what took place in Scott and Burgess’s work, it is still a manipulation of vision for the percieved sake of an audience. An audience he obviously fails to understand. Like George Lucas returning to our beloved Star Wars trilogy (you know which one I’m referring to) and making Greedo shoot first, little changes make a big difference.

I wish that I had indeed seen the original cut of the film as I feel like I could fairly access it on different terms if that was the case, but as is, The Grandmaster feels doggedly incomplete. It’s packed with some truly stunning cinematography and a bulk of inspired directorial choices but is cut down by the hand that feeds it, resulting in a strange cross-cultural-hybrid nearly as confused as it is confusing.

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Ten Movies to Look Out for in Fall 2013

Fall is the time of year when the leaves change color, the air gets a distinct crispness and the movies all of a sudden get really good. While the year up to this point has certainly had some gems, it’s been very hit or miss. With the stocked platter of promising films showing up this back-loaded fall season, I have a feeling that only one or two in current top ten will make it past the end of the year’s chopping block. I’m only confident that one, Before Midnight, will make it to the final scoreboard on my Top Ten List.

As for this fall, there is a massive selection for all film-going audiences with blockbusters like Thor: The Dark World, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – sure to be the colon-sporting trio busting the doors off the season’s box-office records – alongside fare more intended for the Oscar-conscious.

It’s nearly impossible to make a list out of so many strong contenders but, for the love of the internet, a list must be crafted, framed in the bones of the defeated. Amongst those that I am anticipating but just didn’t make the cut are a wealth of films based on true stories: Ron Howard‘s F1 racing biopic Rush couldn’t be further from Steve McQueen‘s story of a free black man forced back into slavery, Twelve Years a Slave, but looks equally intriguing. The true story of Walt Disney, here played by Tom Hanks, comes to light in Saving Mr. Banks but concern over how watered down the Disney-production will be keeps it from mounting the tippy-tops of my anticipation charts. Also in the true life department is the Somalian pirate hijacking film, also starring Hanks, Captain Phillips from director Paul Greengrass, alongside Dallas Buyers Club starring Matthew McConaughey as a patient battling for fair prescription-drugs for HIV-positive patients and the Benedict Cumberbatch-starring The Fifth Estate about the rise and fall of Julian Asange.

 

Also on that list are a few guilty pleasures. The latest iteration of the iconic American CIA operative created by Tom Clancy in Jack Ryan, now played by Chris Pine, has the potential to launch either an intellectual franchise or could be a big old dud. Similarly, Anchorman 2 is positioned to top the laugh charts but this one-liner built may just miss the ingredient that made the first so unforgettable. Frozen hopes to heat up Disney’s latest streak of animated winners while putting a nail in the coffin of the golden era of Pixar but also stands the chance to be as vanilla as Despicable Me 2. Both The Past and August: Osage County look like they could be winners… or could be heavily stepped in melodrama. We shall see.

Jason Reitman‘s latest, Labor Day, is poised to be a good, if not great film, as is Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska. Out of the Furnace has an all-star cast (C. Bale, C. Affleck, Z. Saldana, W. Harrelson, F. Whitaker) and looks to either be quite a show or quite a disappointmentwhile Spike Jonze‘s Her looks pretty much phenomenal already (and missed the list by a hair).

Now with those out of the way, let’s get down to the final ten.

10. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Ben Stiller is a funny little man who looks like he’s trying to break the mold. Equal parts comedy, sci-fi, adventure and drama, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty looks enigmatic in all the right ways. The first trailer was almost completely devoid of dialogue but set us up for a film that is, in the very least, beautifully crafted and impeachable realized.

The story synopsis is as follows: “An office worker who lives inside fantasy worlds where he gets to live an adventurous life while romancing his co-worker sets off a global journey to fix things when both of their jobs are threatened.”

With comedy gold like Tropic Thunder, Cable Guy and Zoolander already under his directorial belt, Stiller has already proven that he’s got a knack for comedy. Whether that extends into something more likely to be considered Oscar territory is up for interpretation but is a debate that will surely be bubbling come the release of this film.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is directed by and starring Ben Stiller, it also features Kristen Wiig, Sean Penn, Adam Scott, and Patton Oswalt. It opens Christmas Day, 2013.

9. Oldboy

 

With a tendency to rock the boat, Spike Lee is a definitively hit-of-miss talent. But the combination of a talented cast, stellar art direction, and a nifty story of revenge per Korean filmmaker Chan Wook-Park, this looks to add up to a genuine thrill ride packing some real visceral hits. In the fall season, we need a well measured dose of ultra-violence and Oldboy looks to deliver for those of us craving the goods.

“Obsessed with vengeance,” the synopsis read, “a man sets out to find out why he was kidnapped and locked up into solitary confinement for 20 years without reason.” If you haven’t checked out the trailer, give it a look here but be aware that it’s NSFW.

Oldboy is directed by Spike Lee and stars Josh Brolin, Samuel L Jackson, Elizabeth Olsen and Michael Imperioli. It hits theaters on October 25.

8. Foxcatcher

 

Bennett Miller‘s Foxcatcher has been surprisingly light on marketing. We got a glimpse of Steve Carrell as a murdering psychopath but no trailer has yet seen the light of day. Having just set a mid-December release date for the film, Sony Pictures Classics really has to turn on the machine to start churning up interest for the masses. Us in the industry though know that Miller (Moneyball) is a name to look out for, especially backed by a killer cast that features Carrell,Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Michael Hall.

The description is brief but powerful, setting this one up as a film that could truly be great (especially with Miller’s nuanced directing): “
The story of Olympic Wrestling Champion Mark Schultz and how paranoid schizophrenic John duPont killed his brother, Olympic Champion Dave Schultz. ” 
 
 Foxcatcher is directed by Bennett Miller and stars Channing Tatum, Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, and Anthony Michael Hall.
It hits theaters December 13.

7. Inside Llewyn Davis

 

When the Coen Bros make a film, you watch it. Now it doesn’t always end up being the genre-blending piece of cinema you were hoping for but the effort is always there. Luckily, response for their latest, Inside Llewyn Davis, has been overwhelmingly positive, with many already ranking it amongst their best works.

I want to remain optimistic without getting myself too hyped for the film as I was not nearly as won over by True Grit as many others and thought A Serious Man was overwrought in metaphors to the point of not really mattering.

Following Oscar Issaac as the titular character, the story follows “a week in the life of a young singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961.” If you’re not sold yet, check out the first and second trailers here.

Inside Llewyn Davis is directed by the Joel and Ethan Coen and stars Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Justin Timberlake, F. Murray Abraham, and Garrett Hedlund. It hits limited theaters on December 6 and goes wide on December 20.

6. The Monuments Men

What do George Clooney, George Clooney, and George Clooney have in common? They (he) wrote, directed and starred in The Monuments Men. Remember, Clooney is working off a bit of a gilded track record with his previous endeavors The Ides of March and Good Night and Good Luck both slipping away as critical darlings.

This time Clooney has recruited an all-star cast to round out this WWII adventure/heist/drama film that some are comparing to Ocean’s Eleven with Nazis. Nuff said.

The boiled down idea of the film? “In a race against time, a crew of art historians and museum curators unite to recover renowned works of art stolen by Nazis before Hitler destroys them.”

Clooney and company surprised audiences with the release of the first trailer as it featured a lot more comedy than we were expecting. In light of that, I believe the lightish hue makes the film even more worthy of anticipation.

The Monuments Men is written by, starring and directed by George Clooney. It also stars Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville and John Goodman. It hits theaters in the thick of Oscar season on December 18.


5. The Counselor

 

Mr. Ridley Scott,what a big question mark you’ve become. The man responsible for genre-altering cinema like Alien, Blade Runner and even Gladiator has since seemed descended into a black hole of talent. Although his most recent work on Prometheus seemed to signal a return to form, his entire 2000-2010 platter was the definition of lackluster.

The Counselor though looks to turn the ship around once and for all. With Cormac McCarthy penning the original script and a killer cast, backed by a madcap trailer, this looks like one that could score big for Scott’s shot at nabbing some Oscar nominations after a long absence from the ceremony.

The short and sweet of it: “A lawyer finds himself in over his head when he gets involved in drug trafficking.”

The Counselor is directed by Ridley Scott, written by Cormac McCartney and stars Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. It hits theaters October 25.

4. All is Lost

 

Robert Redford‘s one man army is exactly the type of bold direction that the industry needs. With J.C. Chandor behind the camera and only Redford in front of it, this is a definitively stripped down film, exactly the turn we crave in a film climate overstuffed with CGI, subplots and hapless romance.

Tracking a man sailing on his own, slowly being won over by nature, All is Lost has already been called a powerhouse after it’s debut in Cannes. The synopsis: “After a collision with a shipping container at sea, a resourceful sailor finds himself, despite all efforts to the contrary, staring his mortality in the face.” The trailer only serves to solidify the promised intensity. With a release date a little over a month away (and a screening even sooner), I can’t wait to see this.

All is Lost is directed by J.C. Chandorand stars Robert Redford. It hits theaters on October 18.

3. Gravity

 

From magical worlds to dystopian futures to the blackness of space, Alfonso follows up his last masterpiece with the story of “a medical engineer and an astronaut work together to survive after an accident leaves them adrift in space.”

What was once my most anticipated film of the entire year, Gravity has taken a bit of a slip after the curtain was lifted and we got a first look at the trailer. Don’t get me wrong, the trailer displayed exactly the brand of filmmaking prowess from Alfronso Cuaron that made me get so initially excited for the movie. It also confirmed that Sandra Bullock is the star of it, a fact I kept trying to overlook as my anticipation levels rose.

The simple one-and-two of it is that I just find Bullock annoying. It’s just hard to keep a film at that top slot when the star of the feature is essentially guaranteed to be at best, not annoying, and at worst, super annoying. Hopefully Cuaron’s distinct single-shot camera work draws us away from the inadequacies of the actress and creates a sense of wonder we haven’t yet experienced at the movies.

To his credit, Cuaron seems like a guy who knows exactly what he’s doing so I guess he must have some trick up his sleeve in employing Bullock over a host of rival actresses chomping at the bit to work with the visionary director. For now, we can only cross our fingers and hope that this delivers as massively as I’m hoping it will. Though it will debut at TIFF in a few short weeks, it arrives in theaters in pretty much a month flat.

Gravity is directed by Alfonso Cuaron and stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. It will fall into theaters on October 4.

2. The Wolf of Wall Street

 

Leo and Scorsese are back at it. The duo responsible for Shutter Island, The Departed, The Aviator and Gangs of New York reteam for their fifth collaboration together. With three of their four films together nominated for Best Picture and The Departed winning – Shutter Island being the massively underrated exception – there is no denying that this combo is a surefire way to set the industry alight. 

Their latest is “based on the true story of Jordan Belfort, from his rise to a wealthy stockbroker living the high life to his fall involving crime, corruption and the federal government.” Based on the memoirs penned by Belfort himself, this tale of mile-high corruption comes across a project as dark as it is fun.

The first trailer for the film had a seething sense of life to it, anchored by tasty performances across the board. While Scorsese is essentially guaranteed both a Best Director and Best Picture nod, the question on everyone’s tongue is whether this will finally be the year that Leonardo DiCaprio will walk away with Oscar gold.

The Wolf of Wall Street is directed by Martin Scorsese and stars Leonardo Dicaprio, Jonah Hill, Matthew McConaughey,  Jon Bernthal, Jon Favreau, Kyle Chandler, Jean Dujardin, Rob Reiner and Spike Jonze. It hits theaters November 15.

1. American Hustle

 

The count is in and David O. Russell rises to the top. With an unstoppable track record for getting his actors both nominated and winning Academy Awards left and right, there is no doubt in my mind that American Hustle will feature some of the finest acting in all of 2013. With a knock out cast that includes Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Robert De Niro and Michael Peña this slightly true tale of corruption amongst ABSCAM is sure to tear the house down.

Deftly blending drama and comedy has become a calling card for O. Russell and his latest looks to only accelerate that trend. The trailer, though a touch too revealing for my taste, looked picturesque. From the costume and set design to everyone’s complete embodiment of their characters, this just looks like a great time at the movies.

American Hustle is “the story of a con artist and his partner in crime, who were forced to work with a federal agent to turn the tables on other cons, mobsters, and politicians – namely, the volatile mayor of impoverished Camden, New Jersey. “

American Hustle is directed by David O. Russell and stars Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Robert De Niro, Michael Peña, Louis C.K. and Amy Adams. It opens in limited theaters on December 13 and opens wide on December 25.

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That concludes my top ten list for Fall 2013. I’d love to hear your thoughts as well as your own personal top ten lists. Have at it in the comments section below!

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Out in Theaters: WE'RE THE MILLERS

“We’re The Millers”
Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber
Starring Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Will Poulter, Emma Roberts, Ed Helms, Nick Offerman, Kathryn Hahn, Mark L. Young
Comedy, Crime 

110 Minutes
R

Filler entertainment for sure, We’re the Millers is caught somewhere in between the hard-R, cuss-laden adult comedy and your run-of-the-mill, PG-13 family comedy with a soul. It stokes enough laughs to keep the engine churning for its 110 minute run time but when all is said and done, it’s just another comedy kept buoyant by chuckles with little living behind the curtain, sloppily saddled with a moral message far out of its natural reach. You won’t walk out regretting what you’ve seen but you’ll be hard pressed to remember it by name a year down the line.

 

Proving that he knows how to milk a good laugh, director Rawson Marshall Thurber is no stranger to comedy. Back in 2004, he directed the much revered (at least by this guy and his high school buddies) Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. In case you are wondering, yes, that is the movie you’re thinking of. Apparently the world just forgot about the most unnecessarily tacked on post-colon fragment of all time in the whole “A True Understory Story” bit but trust me (and IMDB), it’s part of the name.

While Thurber was the solitary writer behind the laugh riot that was Dodgeball, We’re the Millers has an exorbitant six writers. If writing duties were shared evenly, that calculates to about 18 minutes from each scribe. No wonder the film feels so tonally jarring, rocking back and forth between sweet and sour, shmaltzy and irreverent. When you finally feel like you have a read on Thurber’s voice, it turns on a dime from lewd to sentimental and back again. Like an amusement park ride that spins more than it moves forward, the result is dizzying, disorienting and may make you wanna puke.

Theexalted Dodgeball also had Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and a pre-pariah Lance Armstrong working for it while We’re the Millers rests on the comedic shoulders of Jason Sudeikis and Jennifer Aniston. Sudeikis was a pleasant surprise in Horrible Bosses but he’s still something of an unproven talent while Aniston has largely played the same girl next door with boy issues every since her role as Rachel on Friends. She certainly did break character in Horrible Bosses as the pushy sexual deviant boss, which ultimately resulted in one of the biggest breaths of fresh air in her entire career. For some of her onscreen time in this, she captures a similarly charmless aura but, about halfway through, descends to the flippant level we’ve come to expect of her.

And although this isn’t Sudekis’s first rodeo, it is essentially his first go-around as the leading man. As a supporting character, Sudekis thrives with his bohemian dude-isms. He’s that silent bomber that swoops in and steals the laugh but here, he owns the pony show and is happy to try and strike at all the bells and whistles. Even in moments where the film stagnates, he satisfying leads the cast with his easygoing, quip-laden energy and eager beaver physical comedy.

Sudekis plays the role of David Clark, a 30-something burn out drug dealer working for his nerdy-college-buddy-turned-pot-kingpin (Ed Helms). When David gets robbed by a fuzzy-haired pack of hoods, he is enlisted to carry a smidge and a half of pot (read two hundred pounds) over from the dusty lawlessness of Mexico. In an attempt to be inconspicuous, he employs stripper neighbor, Rose (Aniston), apartment twerp/dork/loser/virgin, Kenny (Will Poulter), and hood-rat hobo with an iPhone 5, Casey (Emma Roberts) to impersonate a hapless, all American family on an RV vacation. Naturally, the border guards wouldn’t suspect a pink polo-sporting family to be smuggling tens of millions of dollars worth of sweet, sticky ganja across the heavily guarded US border.

There are moments of stitch-inducing laughs peppered throughout but it’s hard to shake the feeling that this is a minor experience in a minor film. Nonetheless, there are moments that really got a rise out of me, such as an impromptu learning-to-kiss seminar that is gruelingly awkward as well as various asides from Sudekis, spoken or even just mouthed, but two days after watching the film and the effects have already mostly washed off. Regardless of its relative levity and how easy it is to write off, it was a film that I didn’t feel bad snickering at alongside the audience exploding in a cacophony of laughter around me. In terms of the immediate experience of having a good time at the movies, We’re the Millers accomplishes that goal.

What I did have an issue with is the shoehorning in of moral lessons surrounding the troubles of drug dealing. There’s a sort of implied agreement that if you’re going to see a stoner comedy about a sourpatch burnout slinging bags of weed with names like “Fucking Awesome” and “Alaska Thunderfuck” then you don’t really have any moral credo against the illicit substance. We don’t need to be told that drug dealing is bad and, by extension, don’t need to see our hero turn away from it in order to understand that he’s actually a good guy.

 
 
 

There was never a “Cheech and Chong Turn Narcs!” for a reason just as Pineapple Express didn’t end with James Franco and Seth Rogen swearing off the substance forever. It’s an unnecessary turning point for a film that already is trying to stand for the importance of the family. Being a comedy with a little bit of a message is one thing. Being a moral guard of the US War on Drugs is quite another. Had they just stuck by the idea that things are better in twos, or threes, or fours, it could have had enough of a sugarcoat to satisfy the older demographics but instead it tilts too far into preachy, moral guardianship. By the end, two is two too many ethical judgments for this comedy to cram in.

But, let’s not get too down on it. It’s a fun movie right? That’s the point, right? Surely, but it’s also the reason why I won’t be prancing through town singing its praises. I thought the ongoing Scotty P. “You know what I’m sayin'” gag was hilarious, I laughed a lot when Kenny was in the throes of a kiss gangbang and even Jennifer Aniston hit more than she missed (even if she should retire stripping from her resume as soon as possible). But in the end, it’s not much more than throwaway entertainment that’ll see a meager return on its investment, have a quick HBO run and disappear into the same discount bin that Horrible Bosses lingers in today a mere two years after its release.

C+

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Three Days in the Thick of BUMBERSHOOT

As an annual sendoff to summer, Bumbershoot 2013 is a monumental celebration of the free spirit (ironically set on Labor Day) – a keyed up free-for-all of art, music, comedy, film and theater. The droves of Bumbershoot attendees (henceforth known as Shooters) yearned for the wealth of artistic expression, surging and forming into longer and longer lines and eating the offerings up in almost greedy bites.

As a melting pot of bubbling tweens, suburban families, eager theater-types, and worn-down hippies, Bumbershoot tries to please everyone by offering a barns-width in variety of art forms. There are few other festivals where you can go from the intimacy of a brick-walled comedy venue to the booming dome of an indoor stadium, finishing the night off sitting in the grass of a cozy natural amphitheater. In this regard, Bumbershoot has it all.
But the zoo of staff and volunteers helping to run the large outdoor venue often gave it the feel of a circus – a chaotic swirl of slacking responsibility and “it ain’t my problem” attitude. However, when bureaucratic issues weren’t standing in the way (twice, I ran into issues of grunting and shoving from the staff at the Key Arena), the experience itself had a chance to shine. And shine it did.

While the first day of any festival always comes with its fair share of getting into the swing of things, day one at Bumbershoot was the calm before the storm – a day of relative peace before a tsunami of eager guests tore through the floodgates.

Starting out the festival with a collection of short sci-fi films seemed suiting so to the SIFF 1 Reel Film Fest I headed. Of the collection of short films, one stood out most – Incident on Highway 73. While the others had their own bits of flair and offerings of promise, they were mostly forgettable among a lineup of shorts. Highway 73 though managed to craft an immediate sense of tension that sustained itself through its near 30-minute run time. Props to director Brian Thompson for that.

Patton Oswalt – also an attendee for all three days and a seemingly lynch pin part of many other comedic acts – gave his comic two cents in a riotous but short live stand-up bit then handed the majority of his hour long performance off to his “guests.” Thankfully, most of these featured comics were up to snuff with a raunchy, ritzy-girl persona from Natasha Leggero being the ultimate breadwinner when it came to the laugh bank.

But the first real standout came in the form of Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Experience – the surprise hit of the festival.  This four piece tribute band arched through a killer set of the much beloved 70s rock gods Led Zeppelin with abundantly rehearsed talent. Each note was so uncanny that if you closed your eyes you would swear you were listening to the salty croon of Robert Plant, the fiery licks of Jimmy Page and the sweet synchronization of drum legend John Bonham. But son Jason Bonham’s gushing love of his now-deceased father was moving not only in his reverent reflection of his father’s music. “I never told him this while he was alive,” Bonham says, “but I do this for the love of my Dad.”

The masses showed up on Sunday for what was easily the most packed day at Bumbershoot and the girth of humans could be felt in the ever-growing lines. The Mowgli‘s started the day off for me with their cult-alt-pop 8-man show. Belting songs about faith, togetherness and love, this LA-based ocho spewed infectiously catchy tunes to a crowd superficially embodying these benevolent ideals who, ironically enough, just couldn’t seem to stop pushing and bumping into their fellow brethren. Thus is the eternal catch-22 of the modern festival.

Back in the SIFF Theater for more shorts was a true standout going by the name of Woody, which I will say now will be a strong contender, if not a shoe in, for Best Animated Short come Oscar season. The animation was breath taking and the story was simple, heartfelt, and unique – all the elements a short needs to sustain a breathless audience and garnish the buzz needed to get the nod.

Other noticeable spotlights of the day included a top notch Main Stage show from the Canadian duo Tegan and Sara, a comedy set led by a nest-haired, but certainly not feather-brained, Morgan Murphy, and a star-bedazzled lawn performance from bubbly synth-driven alt-pop band, Matt & Kim. The two-piece Grizzled Mighty played with sloppy mania and almost had the crowd possessed if not for the regular misplacing of time from drummer Whitney Petty. This chick could certainly bang her head but keeping a regular rhythm proved quite an insurmountable issue that ultimately left the band stranded in a sea of time, in desperate hopes of a metronome.

But the main event that rose to the top of my personal to-see list ended up packing an unexpected, and largely unwanted, surprise.

The Zombies, authors of one of the best and most-underrated albums of the 1960s “Odyssey and Oracle,” came to stage in my eyes as Gods and left as mere pensioners. The culprit of this diametric perspective shift? A dangerously bipolar set. Much like watching The Rolling Stones this day and age, anything that wasn’t a certified 60s classic just felt flat. Waffling between superbly performed classics such as “She’s Not There,” “I Love You,” “A Rose for Emily,” “Tell Her No” and “Time of the Season” and a string of new tunes that felt like little more than old men’s 12 bar blues, The Zombies let old school fans and themselves down.

Even with the knowledge that these late great performers aim for a 11th hour redemption, it still feels too little, too late and a sidetrack from the show that I, for one, came to see. As a lover of all things 60s, it was a sad reality to realize that they would largely opt out of the songs that made them such a growing sleeper hit for the past fifty years and favor a bag of new tricks. The Zombies still do have a pulse, but it was weaker than I’d hoped for.

The last day, on glorious Labor Day itself, was characterized by the same mild Seattle sun and zombie-esque crowds shuffling between Russian dumplings and custom-made poster art but it was the final day which meant a requisite cramming in of all things grand.

Heading to the MainStage for two back-to-back performances from Alt-J and MGMT, I ran aground a hefty three-man security team that couldn’t seem to wrap their head around the idea of a Press Pass and so I wound up stuck in the nosebleed section for two of the bands I most wanted to see. Luckily, both shows were so packed full of energy that it was hard to let the low levels of authority and illusions of grandeur sour things entirely.

Held in place by a hypnotic light show, Alt J took to the stage crooning out some killer harmonies and pounding melodies. While they sometimes drifted too far into the down tempo, when they picked things up there was a palpable sense of talent unhinged in their staccato vocals and pounding synth.

But for all the glory of Alt J, it was MGMT who stole the show and became the highlight of the festival. Shuffling between their older chart-topping hits like “Electric Feel,” “The Youth” and “Kids“, their more underground and subculture second album  “Congratulations” and a handful of excellent tunes off their upcoming self-titled album, MGMT was simply on fire. Between the visualizer showing seagulls flying in space and reflections of Mario Kart’s revered rainbow road, this was a show all about the experience. It measured psychedelia and craftsmanship in equal doses and delivered to a jaw-agaped audience. This is a band that has improved their live performance significantly since their last show I saw back in 2010 was impressive but not nearly on the same level. They have truly become masters of arena rock. Transforming the old and the new into one singular beast may not be an easy task but MGMT has shown they can flex a muscle that few others can and that ought to be worth more than its weight in gold.

 

The only true piece of theater I had a chance to observe over the weekend came in the form of Audrey and Nelson, a puppet sex musical I attended on this final day. Even though the show sounds gimmicky (like an inbred cousin to the popular Broadway show Avenue Q) the script from Bret Fetzer and music by Peter Richards (of the band Dude York) married to the committed puppeteers controlling these felt-based characters resulted in a mix of steamy laughs and raunchy sing-a-longs. Complete with projector-lain images of penises, fully nude puppets, and singing vaginas, Audrey and Nelson is a worthwhile exploration of sex, love, and that weird grey area in between. While production is not currently planned to continue, the weekend long sold-out performance may shift a turn for this little stage production.

Finally, the sun set on Bumbershoot with a lengthy folk-bluegrass set by Trampled by Turtles. Closing out the festival was the five-man group playing a what’s-what of folk string instruments. The guitar, acoustic bass, banjo, mandolin, and violin were each plucked with splinter-carving frenzy as the band beamed through a set marked by up-tempoed string-alongs and mellowed-out, somber cawing from lead singer Dave Simonett, leading up to a cathartic rendition of “Alone” that symbolically book-ended the three day festival. Like Cinderella’s carriage melting into a pumpkin, as the clock struck midnight, the doors of Bumbershoot transformed back into the casual spread of Seattle Center…until next year.

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"Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto" Says ROBOCOP Remake Trailer

I never saw the original Robocop back when I was a kid because, well, it was named Robocop. This newest string in a lineup of reboots though seems kind of promising and may just have enough of the right ingredients to get audiences in seats. Sony and MGM have just released the first trailer for this remake from director Jose Padhila that stars Joel Kinnaman as the titular character and it actually looks half-way decent.

In RoboCop, the year is 2028 and multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Overseas, their drones have been used by the military for years – and it’s meant billions for OmniCorp’s bottom line. Now OmniCorp wants to bring their controversial technology to the home front, and they see a golden opportunity to do it. When Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) – a loving husband, father and good cop doing his best to stem the tide of crime and corruption in Detroit – is critically injured in the line of duty, OmniCorp sees their chance for a part-man, part-robot police officer. OmniCorp envisions a RoboCop in every city and even more billions for their shareholders, but they never counted on one thing: there is still a man inside the machine pursuing justice.

Take a look at the trailer and see if this half-man, half-machine defender of the law is something you’d pay to go see in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INmtQXUXez8

Robocop is directed by Jose Padhila and stars Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson, Abbie Cornish, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Jennifer Ehle, Jackie Earle Haley, Michael Kenneth Williams and Michael Keaton and will hit theaters on February 7, 2014.

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Watch McConaughey and Harrelson Lead New HBO Series TRUE DETECTIVE

Ahh HBO. You are a breathe of fresh air in a putrid pool of network television. You have signaled the turning of the tides, the relocation of true adult entertainment, providing the catalyst that has marked a significant reinvention of what TV could be. And you, like a fine wine, you only improve with age. Sure, you may not currently be in the best run of all time, but the library of media you’ve amassed is unwaveringly impressive as you continue to provide some of the best things around year after year. And now you offer us a look at your next promising bit, True Detective, a story that follows Rust Cohle and Martin Hart whose lives become entangled during a 17-year hunt for a serial killer in Louisiana and we are oh so intrigued.

Aside from the inspired casting of Sean Bean as Eddard Stark on Game of Thrones, Steve Buchemi as Nucky Thompson on Boardwalk Empire, and whoever Jeff Daniels plays on The Newsroom HBO series have largely launched their own talent. Think James Gandolfini and, sigh, Lena Dunham. This is why their next move seems somewhat unprecedented. Not only will True Detective have one massive star in Woody Harrelson but the series has also scooped up Hollywood A-Lister (a man currently hot on a streak that very well may lead to an Oscar nomination, if not a win) Matthew McConaughey.

McConaughey and Harrelson star opposite each other in the first eight-episode slotted season. From what we see in the chaos, they are men on two sides of a fence but the same side of the law. Although this type of cop procedural is no new news, there is something about this that still screams fresh.

The question is, with McConaughey in such high demand, how reasonable is it to expect this show to continue much past the first season? The synopsis clearly delineates a timeline lasting 17 years which really seems to open up the show and almost require it to continue but I wonder. All I know is that from this first look, I am already geared up for episode one and hope that it manages to fill the dark hole that will open up once Breaking Bad blacks out to its final credits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8i5CR4kDjM

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Out in Theaters: SHORT TERM 12

“Short Term 12”
Directed by Destin Cretton
Starring Brie Larson, John Gallagher Jr., Kaitlyn Dever, Stephanie Beatriz, Rami Malek, Alex Calloway, Kevin Hernandez, Lydia Du Veaux, Keith Stanfield 
Drama
96 Mins
R

 

The truth is often more horrifying than fiction and although Short Term 12 isn’t based on a true story, it unearths a harsh reality of displaced youth, offset from the spotlight but boiling under the surface of society. Replicating the many broken homes in modern American families, director/writer Destin Cretton has sole custody of this project. Thankfully, he takes this responsibility seriously and delivers a masterclass in realism complimented with standout performances from Brie Larson, John Gallagher Jr., and Keith Stanfield.

 
Thanks to a charged-up level of emotional maturity, the film tackles difficult issues with careful footing – immediately establishing a reverent tone, dipped with charm and laced with smiles. The psychological trauma uncovered within the character’s brick-walled hearts is likewise handled with tender precision. Each reaction the film garnishes is no accident. Every bit has its place, a building block towards a grand scheme that ultimately delivers a big pay-off for those willing to engage in the bumps along the road.
 
Short Term 12 takes its name from the facility where the film unfolds. A solace for unwanted foster children, abuse victims, and abandoned kids, this is a place with its own set of rules, even if those rules do often stand on shaky grounds. While the employees may come down on cussing and fighting, one rule they let slide is the mandate that youth are only to stay for one year, with some of the residents having shacked up for up to three. Keith Stanfield’s Marcus is one of those lingerers but he’s about to turn 18 and will be forced to face the world outside the emotional security of Short Term 12.

 

His journey is perpendicular to newcomer Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever) who fights tooth and nail to be anywhere but here. While Jayden battles to leave and Marcus tries to work through the backlog of his own demons (with a powerful rap offering a raw view into the tattered loss of his youth), we realize just how short term the stay is here.

It may be limbo but it’s not without it’s guardian angel.Larson’s Grace is that angel. She’s a twentysomething running the ins-and-outs of the joint with the infinite patience of Mother Theresa and a thorny soul buried with secrets. Her heart is invested in the pocket of each and every tenant shuffling through the facility, entombing herself in their trauma, becoming a fiber of their tragedy. Grace puts her physical and emotional well being at the bottom of the totem pole and it’s in part because of this that she is so great at dealing with this gang of lost boys…and girls. But her constant need to play the savior hints at something troubled lingering within her – an undead memory that haunts her every breath.

 

Grace sustains a borderline manipulative relationship with co-worker and underling, Mason (John Gallagher Jr.) who is both her devoted lover and emotional rock. On the flip side, Grace is as hot and cold as the object of a Katy Perry song. Theirs is a shaky boat of love with Grace always maintaining the upper hand, unwilling to let Mason ascend her tower of secrets. Their physical and emotional relationship have obviously parallels to their work positioning with Grace always on top, the solitary king of the castle flanked by skyhigh stone walls.

But to paint Grace as a domineering presence is to misrepresent her. In showing the turbulent nature of this part of her life, Cretton aims to illuminate how broken she is. Her throttling affections are a window into her soul. A key to the realization that doesn’t see herself as even deserving of love. Cretton plants little psychological clues like these throughout the film, prompting our curiosity for what scars these characters are hiding and how, if at all possible, they can be undone. The joy in the film is not the end of the journey but the road to it as Cretton handles his character’s soft-shelled insecurities both gently and honestly instead of putting it in autopilot and expecting the subject to bungle down tear-road.

One of the great rewards of watching the film is seeing how the jigsaw pieces composing Larson and other characters fit together. Unlike lesser films that utilize baggage as a means of emotional manipulation, every reveal, every turn, every batting off or acceptance of affection feels earned. It’s a difficult journey but one that lends credence to the cast’s standup acting ability andCretton‘s talent to skirt past manipulation into a much more rewarding realm of genuineness.

 

What remains the most fascinating portion of the film is Cretton’s willingness to go someplace dark and stir around in the pot. In doing so, a motif that rises to the top is the idea that people reveal themselves through their art. Grace draws, Marcus raps, Jayden writes stories. In these moments of expression, their deepest sense of self shines through perhaps showing more than they ever could in mere conversation. In creation, there is the capacity to destroy, to move beyond. Almost Nietzschian in effect, creation and destruction are symbiotic here. Two faces of one Janus, two sides of the same coin.

Another, more difficult, thing to take away is Cretton’s interpretation of self-inflicted pain. Many wounded souls hurt themselves not to inflict pain but to make the pain go away. This cathartic nature of destruction helps mask the real trauma stirring within them. The only way to move beyond this cycle of abuse though seems to be in a form of acceptance – a self-imposed yard sale of everything nasty hidden away. And so it is in Short Term 12. Only when we show the darkest parts of ourselves are we able to start moving towards the light.

A-

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Out in Theaters: RIDDICK

“Riddick”
Directed by David Twohy
Starring Vin Diesel, Jordi Mollà, Matt Nable, Katee Sackhoff, Dave Bautista, Bokeem Woodbine, Raoul Trujilo
Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
119 Mins
R

Vin Diesel possesses some uncanny voodoo that allows him to be a bad actor who people excuse for bad acting. His smarmy tough guys are marked by a well-measured dose of self-awareness, sometimes so third-wall breaking that they almost plays as cutesy – like a shaven-headed, muscle-bound Ferris Bueller. He tries to make us laugh with him, not at him, and for the most part, it works. Even in Riddick, which is no doubt a bad movie, his oily glances and meat-and-potatoes asides work to entangle us in this world, trying to lift the pulped story from the screenwriters trash bin where it belongs. But even Diesel’s ‘hardy hars’ can’t salvage a plot that’s so disjointed and thrown together it feels more like a violent mosaic than an actual movie.

Complying to the traditional three arc tango just was not the right play here, as this metaphorical pigsty of a film is essentially three movies crammed into the same two hour runmtime.The first act is Riddick – battleworn loner stranded on hostile alien planet. Here, straggling baby dragons, working up an immunity to enlarged scorpion’s venom and montaging his way towards a space station in hopes of rescue at least give the character some semblance of purpose.

While I’ll admit to having missed the first two installments in the Riddick franchise, this first act gave me a sense of the shell-hardened ruffian on screen in addition to the sun-baked world on which he’s stranded, with all its creeper crawlers scurrying to-and-fro. There was a sense of stakes behind this action – a survival of the fittest joust between man and beast. But the sense of meaning that this opening scenario presented was quickly dissolved entirely from the film into a mindless boggle of soldier’s hoorahs, asinine body counts and ugly sexism.

The second act is an us-vs-them skirmish between Riddick and a band of mercs who’ve just touched down on the unnamed planet’s surface to hunt down Riddick and collection on his insurmountable bounty. While it serves to develop a new set of characters, it is pretty much entirely absent of the titular antihero. He lingers in the shadow, proving his worth as a cold-blooded murderer while we meet a crew of meat heads with little to no appeal.

 Katee Sackhoff‘s Dahl is the most interesting of the crew but having a strong female lead in this sci-fi actioner seems more like cannon fodder than progress. You’ll see what I mean shortly. The only other character worthy of mention is Johns (Matt Nable). He’s the father of one Little Johns (apparently a character in an earlier film) and the only part of the crew who’s mind isn’t eternally gutter bound. An inkling of a common thread is woven between Johns and Riddick but it’s not nearly as meaningful as the film supposes it is. “You’re son was spineless,” Riddick says to Johns, “like father like son.” As you may guess, the growing consternation between the two leads to a macho-a-thon between the buff dudes, each trying to one-up the other’s slo-mo feats of alien-slaying.

Finally we get to the third act, which amazingly enough, is the only portion featured in the trailers that you may have seen. That’s right, the sequence of a captured Riddick comes in the final act of the film. But again, it feels like an entirely different movie at that point so why bother trying to sell the movie as an entire package? Hell, just pick out your favorite act and make a trailer for that because that’s what the marketing crew seemed to do.

David Twohy, director of Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick, returns to direct a screenplay from Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell (Unknown) so stuffed with sexual repugnance that it’s astonishing. Sackhoff plays the one female character with a name and her sexual preference for other women is so often degraded that the lack of comfort created feels like a sitting down and listening to one of grandma’s racist stories (but she’s old so we let it slide there.) Constant threats to rape a lesbian are unsettling – not to mention unnecessary. And aside from creating that rapey-vibe that is so popular in the movies these days, it’s just pure bizarre. Surely, the threat to go “balls deep” in her was played for a laugh but, geez, it was quite a dropping of the proverbial ball. I’m no arbiter of political correctness but the line in the sand is certainly crossed here mostly because we feel little more than uncomfortable watching it. We want to turn to the woman next to us in the theater and point out that we’re not laughing. “Excuse me ma’am, just wanted to point out that I’m not chuckling at all the gang rape jokes.”

While it’s hard enough to recover from a fumble of that degree, the story deadends so abruptly and severely that your head is left spinning. It’s hard to think of a movie in recent history with such a nonsensical, truncated conclusion. Literally everything leading up to it suggested one thing and then, just for the hell of it, the tracks shift and we’re left with a wildly different conclusion than we could have ever imagined. Earned twist this is not, as there is not one shred of evidence suggesting anything that could be confused for coherency is at play in the final five minutes.

You have to stick the ending. It’s the lynch-pin of the entire film. Unknowingly, Twohy must have mistaken “stick” for “skewer” as his conclusion is as half-baked as a no-bake cookie. That’s right, it’s so half-baked that it ain’t even baked at all. Running full speed into a brick wall, Riddick exits on the least graceful of notes. Aiming for resolution, the film seems to say, “We ran out of movie. Fin.”

On a technical side, Riddick achieves some minor level of potency. The scorched cinematography from David Eggby (Mad Max) actually looks pretty good considering the limited budget, particularly in the expansive sprawl of the first act. Original music from Graeme Revell thumps and pounds along, giving a backbone to the piece but disappearing entirely from our minds the minute the credit roll stops. But the real star of the film is Riddick’s weapon of choice – the bone saw. And by bone saw, I mean a bone that’s been crafted into a jagged-edge switchblade. So at least there’s that.

With reckless abandon, Twohy throws too much at the screen, desperately hoping for it all to stick. Fortunately for him, some of it does. There’s enough absurdity to cull some chuckles, a handful of interesting action beats, and a pet tiger-dog that is surely the audience’s favorite character. But so much is constantly sliding down off the wall that we’re left with a big pile of goop that doesn’t add up to much. Without a doubt, Riddick is B-movie territory but it’s handled with direct-to-video finesse.

D+

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Benedict Cumberbatch Rumored for Sith Lord in STAR WARS 7

Benedict Cumberbatch, known by many as the villain “John Harrison” in Star Trek into Darkness and by few as the leading man on BBC‘s Sherlock, has some pretty massive rumors swirling about his strangely shaped head of late. Although nothing is confirmed, Cumberbatch is said to be in talks with Disney to play a “Vader-type” for Star Wars Episode 7. Now my understanding of this description – them using Vader-type instead of Sith – seems to come down to do a perceptions that the general public lacks familiarity with nerdtastic terms like “Sith Lord” – which is clearly all that they’re trying to get at with the description of anyone being “Vader-like”.

Any main villain in this next installment is sure to be a different beast than the iconic shiny-black-suit-wearing, respirator-box-chatting surrogate of the Dark Side. Who or what exactly he may be – if he is indeed involved in the project at all – is entirely at a speculatory point for now.

As for Cumberbatch’s involvement, a statement he made prior seems to suggest that he may be more than willing to be a part of a new part of the franchise:

“I was much more connected to [Star Wars] as a kid, in the way that a lot of kids are because it’s immediate storytelling, very simple – a beautifully, outrageously simple narrative in a way – and a wonderful three-act melodrama, opera,” Cumberbatch told Total Film. “And I loved them. I really, really loved those films and I always wanted to be Han Solo.”

Good choice on Han Solo, Cumbie. That’s who I wanted to be too. Mr. Cumberbatch however isn’t the only name rumored for this Disney-charted trip back to the stars as Alex Pettyfer (I Am Number Four, Magic Mike) and Rachel Hurd-Wood (Peter Pan) have both auditioned for roles. 

Hurd-Wood supposedly auditioned for the role of the daughter of Princess Leia and Han Solo, presumably the lead in the new trilogy. Pettyfer is said to be up for the role of Luke Skywalker’s son. Although both these characters feature heavily in canon, there’s no saying exactly which plot lines will be used for the offspring of the Skywalkers and Solos.

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Red Band Trailer for NEIGHBORS Pits Rogen Against Efron

If you didn’t already have a certain disdain for frat bros, this trailer for Neighbors is sure to spark that special hate in your heart. Starring Seth Rogen and Rose Byrneas an ordinary couple married with a baby, Neighbors asks what it would be like if the house next door was turned into a frat house. With Zac Efron, Dave Franco and Christopher Mintz-Plasse filling out the frat pad, the resident lads feud with the family next door in a series of one-up-manship only known to the fraternal world.

Directed by Nicholas Stoller of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, this red band trailer looks pretty promising and is packed with a premise that sees to keep the gags at the forefront. If Stoller’s track record is anything to go by, this is sure to be good time.

Definitely take a look at the trailer but don’t forget that it’s red band and thus not safe for work

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a96ELbUeHA

Neighbors is directed by Nicholas Stoller and stars Seth Rogen and Rose ByrneZac Efron, Dave Franco andChristopher Mintz-Plasse, Lisa Kudrow. It hits theaters May 9, 2014.

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