Ghost in the Shell (1995)
VERDICT:
8/10 Robocops
Still pretty kickass after all these years.
Ghost in the Shell is about an android cop with a human brain working the streets of a future Japan and trying to make sense out of an identity crisis she’s going through, you know, since she’s half-human, half-robot, that kinda stuff. Not long after we meet her, a cyber-criminal starts hacking into people’s heads, getting them to do as he pleases and creating wide-spread panic amongst the government and military, and our Major Kusanagi is tasked with hunting that jerk down before any more fools get their heads screwed up.
So, it’s been a while since I’ve reviewed an anime movie, then again, I find it harder and harder to admit to my friends that even after graduating from the sixth grade and gaving up Magic: The Gathering like the hardcore nerd I was, I do in fact still like the occasional anime movie. But some things never change, and animated or not, good movies are hard to ignore.
Once a nerd, always a nerd. That’s just how it goes, folks.
So, Ghost in the Shell is generally regarded as one of the essential anime movies out there, ranking somewhere below Akira and Spirited Away as the Holy Grails of the genre. There are a lot of things this movie does well, but I think the reason it’s garnered the status it has is pretty much due to how utterly complex, epic and mature it is, far more so than one would expect from its poster of a bare-ass Major holding a glock with shades on.
It won’t take long to realize that this is no cartoon and that the kiddies in the audience should probably change the channel back to Spongebob before they get traumatized any further. It can be brutally violent (and after a guy’s entire torso blows up within the first five minutes you’ll probably know exactly what you’ve gotten yourself into), there’s a hefty amount of android nudity (which is still weird to see in any animated movie, “real” boobs or robo-boobs) and even if all that stuff doesn’t ruffle your feathers, you’re still gonna have a hell of a time trying to figure out what the eff is going on.
As much as Ghost in the Shell is a wild action movie, this sucker is not the kind of thing that you can sit back idly and half-watch if you hope to have any understanding of what’s happening from one scene to the next. It’s very dialogue-heavy, the story and the said dialogue that tells it all is almost too heady for its own good, but even though there’s a huge chance you’re gonna be lost along the way or lost altogether, a lot of the ideas and concepts about personal identity and what it means to be human are not the kind of things you expect to find out of most sci-fi movies, let alone an anime sci-fi movie.
In a nutshell, it’s a thinking-man’s action movie, or, at the very least, a listening-man’s action movie.
The visuals are also gorgeous, and not just in the quality of the artwork and overall animations, but also in the little details that makes this neo-Japan so convincing. Instead of throwing in flying cars or robot butlers, everything’s got this “more than meets the eye” (insert Transformers comment here) vibe to it where it takes familiar staples in our everyday world and turns them into something new. The one example of this that I always thought was so effing great was when one of the characters sits down at a computer, hovers his fingers over the keyboard – seems normal enough – and then all of a sudden this happens and the dude starts typing at 1 trillion WPM.
That shit is cool.
It’s details like this that make it work as a sci-fi movie, it’s the lack of restrictions like physics and pain that make it work as an action movie – one that would be pretty tough to recreate plausibly with real people – and it’s the reflective, serious and highly intelligent script that makes it work as detective story.
This is one smart, badass movie, but if you’re not into anime, I’m still not really sure this is the best place to start; but then again, the actions scenes really are freakin’ awesome. There’s a lot of Matrix in here, there’s also a lot of Blade Runner and if you can get past the bloody messes and write off the boobies as horny Japanese animators being horny Japanese animators, then who knows, you might just totally dig it. Moves a little slow in the first hour, but just slap yourself around and pay attention, Ghost in the Shell has story worth getting.
HAPPY FREAKIN’ ST. PATRICK’S DAY EVERYBODY!
NOW GET OUT THERE AND THROW BACK A GUINNESS!
The Ghost Writer (2009)
VERDICT:
7/10 Shady Gigs
Probably the best thing Polanski’s got going for him at the moment.
The Ghost Writer is about an accomplished novelist who’s offered a lucrative sum to re-write the former Prime Minister of the UK’s memoirs after the guy who penned the first draft kicks the bucket quite mysteriously. Being that people will do just about anything for a quarter of a mil these days, the guy takes the job and does his best to try and stay out of the recent political fiasco the P.M. has found himself in, but one thing leads to another and he finds himself tangled up in the whole mess just as bad as the rest of ’em.
Unfortunately, this movie has nothing to do with Ghost Writer, the epically awesome show from the early ’90s (they could have at least used the theme song or even cast Sheldon Turnipseed as the lead), but it is the latest effort by everyone’s favorite pond-hopping, vigilante filmmaker – you guessed it, kids – Roman Polanski. Truth be told, I’ve been slacking all my life and haven’t exactly seen too many Polanski movies. Half-watched Rosemary’s Baby back in the day, haven’t seen The Pianist since it came out (even though I do remember it being great) and I also half-watched Chinatown for a film class because it’s so much easier to sleep in the back row when all the lights are turned off.
I am not proud of this. I will do my very best to change my evil ways, baby, and oh lordy will I write. But even with my limited knowledge about this movie or the guy behind it, I still found a good deal to appreciate.
Going off of Polanski, the dude seems to know a thing or two about making an atmospheric movie. The overall look is dreary as hell from the set-pieces to the landscapes, like it’s filmed off the coast of London during typhoon season even though it takes place off the Eastern coast of the US. It’s really something else to take in and it really complements the slow-boil pacing and classic feel of the script.
Might be talking out of my ass here considering I already established that I know next to nothing about Polanski movies, but from what I do remember seeing, the plot and tone here felt very similar to Chinatown. It’s got this old-timey vibe to it where this outsider tries to figure out a mystery and ends up opening up a can of worms that way bigger than what he bargained for, there’s a whole lot more talking than there is action and there seems to be a conscious effort to have it that way, and even the way the plot plays out was strangely similar at times.
But hey, that’s just what came to mind and I very well might have to edit the hell out of that last paragraph by the time I actually get around to re-watching Chinatown. Nonetheless, Polanski did good and while I can’t really say much for the guy’s character, it can’t be easy to phone in a movie your directing from prison and not end up with two hours of crap.
The dialogue on the other hand is nothing special and when most of the movie is folks talking to each other, trying to be sharp and all Sam Spade-ey but never really getting there, that ends up being quite a bummer. The dialogue’s not bad, it’s just disappointingly average for this kind of movie.
The story on the other hand is the real driving force of the movie, and though it took me a while to really get hooked in, it sure does pick up in the last half-hour or so. But the last five minutes are a strange five minutes in that it manages to go from “Whoa!” to “Huh?” in one awfully peculiar fell swoop that I’m still kinda confused about. Also seemed very Chinatown.
Anyway, Ewan McGregor is good as our ghost (but Ewan’s always good, even if he is still Renton to me), Pierce Brosnan could afford to tone it down as the P.M., and there’s a crap load of other famous blokes in there who you’ll recognize and they do just fine in their given roles. Interesting choice to give Jim Belushi a serious role as a bald-headed hardass publisher, but I never really expect to see him in anything ever.
All in all, The Ghost Writer started out as a low 7 but ended up on the higher end of things by the final Act. Not quite sure this is for everyone and I could see how it might bore the Twihard generation into a deep, glitter-filled slumber, but it’s good stuff and it’s worth sticking with.
And so I’m off to start the Sheldon Turnipseed Fan Club. Any takers?
The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights (2009)
VERDICT:
8/10 Apple Blossoms
A fittingly awesome look into one of the best bands out there.
The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights is a documentary that follows rock duo Meg & Jack White as they play scheduled and impromptu shows at every territory and province in Canada to celebrate their tenth anniversary as a band.
Being a huge White Stripes fan to begin with, I was pretty pumped about this movie. I’m gonna do my best not to turn this review into an excuse to gush over them, but let’s just say if you’ve never listened to Elephant, you’re missing out on the best album of the last decade.
Yeah, that should do.
But then again, that’s just me, the recovering music snob that I am. Thankfully, this one’s not just an hour-and-a-half of fan service and will even appeal to all you folks who still can’t get “Fell in Love with a Girl” out of your heads. Just ask my good buddy Fred who got dragged along to this, he’ll back me up 100%.
But even as a fan, the White Stripes are an interesting band to focus a movie on. Some might write off Jack as spooky at first glance, others might write off Meg as mute well after first glance, and I still have no idea as to whether or not they’re brother and sister or ex-husband and wife or robot assassins sent from the future the rock us into oblivion, yet that’s all part of the appeal. There’s a mystery to the band that’s at once explained and perpetuated as the movie goes on – which I totally dig – but in the end it’s all about the music.
And while a good deal of the movie is spent watching them play face-melting shows to masses of eager Canucks, this strangely enough ends up being the least interesting part of the movie.
The best parts come in the guerrilla shows they put on in bowling alleys as Jack starts picking up spares inbetween riffs, on city buses as they get all the passengers singing “The Wheels on the Bus”, in a circle of village elders who don’t even speak the same language and on the back of a boat belting out “Catfish Blues” (one of my all-time favs) to the folks on shore. It’s genuinely fun moments like these that elevate the band from their label as “big timers” and it becomes all too clear that for all their success and for all their accolades/criticisms, they really do just love the music.
There’s also a ton of scenes with Jack and Meg just talking about their career, their image, music and each other. Unfortunately, Jack finds himself getting a little too hung up on addressing his critics, but once he gets that out of the way, he’s got some seriously funny and down-to-Earth things to say about a band that the public really doesn’t know a whole lot about.
Not so much Meg though, she’s pretty quiet, but Jack addresses that, too.
Director Emmett Malloy also does a great job of complementing the look and sound of the movie with the look and sound of the band. Nearly everything is filmed in shades of black, white and red, the video quality is vintage and grainy and the cinematography is gritty and raw. It’s pretty awesome how the camera almost feels like the third member of the band after a while, like a real fan is filming it. Good stuff.
Now, I don’t know how successful I’ve been in convincing any of you non-groupies out there to go check this out, but if you’ve made it this far, I’d say give it a shot. The White Stripes really are a great band – easily in my Top Five – and even though the live stuff from their scheduled shows here isn’t as awesome as the show they put on in their first concert DVD, Under Blackpool Lights, I still think you’d be hard pressed not to appreciate how effing awesome they are.
Under Great White Northern Lights is just a cool freakin’ movie and a lot of that is because The White Stripes are just a cool freakin’ band. Whether you’ve got their whole discography booted up on your iPod or just like running to “Seven Nation Army”, this is a great introduction to a genuine band that seems to have gotten mistaken for their image over the years.
And as a kind of bonus, CHECK THIS OUT. Best White Stripes song, best version of it I’ve ever heard. Awesome, awesome stuff.
And the most surprising moment of the 2010 Oscars was…
THE GENERAL LACK OF LOVE FOR TARANTINO AND BASTERDS!
At least Waltz didn’t get snubbed, but glad to see we’re all on the same page.
Mark my words, folks – some day, hopefully soon, QT will get his due. Politics, man. Too much freakin’ politics.
RESULTS:
– Sandra Bullock wins Best Actress: 4 votes
– Hurt Locker wins Best Pic: 6 votes
– The wonderful lack of long-ass speeches: 1 vote
– Hurt Locker wins Best Original Screenplay: 1 vote
– The general lack of love for Tarantino and Basterds: 12 votes
– The White Ribbon / A Prophet get robbed of Best Foreign: 7 votes
– That freakin’ hour-long interpretive dance routine for the Best Score nominees: 6 votes (what the hell was that?)
– Other: 1 vote for “Avatar wins Best Cinematography”, 1 vote for “Up in the Air loses Best Adapted Screenplay to Precious” (didn’t see that coming either), 1 vote for “The White Ribbon / A Prophet not getting robbed because Argentina makes the best foreign films!” (that one’s up for debate), 1 vote for “Martin & Baldwin were actually funny” (agreed) and 1 vote for “No Aiden R. on the red carpet” (oh you…)
Well, that’s it for the Oscar nonsense this year. Back to the good shit!
Green Zone (2010)
VERDICT:
6/10 Hooahs
Not quite as awesome as the “Jason Bourne goes to Iraq” pitch that’s tied into it, but not too bad all in all.
Green Zone is about a Chief Warrant Officer in Iraq who keeps getting sent to infiltrate WMD sites but time after time finds himself coming up empty handed in yet another wild goose chase. So he gets to asking, “What the eff is up with our shitty intelligence and where in the hell are these nukes?” Naturally, no one gives him a straight answer, but since he seems to be the only one out there who isn’t drinking the Kool-Aid, he takes it upon himself to uncover the identity of the guy behind the “intelligence” in spite of everyone else who tells him to just let it slide.
Obviously, these people don’t know who they’re dealing with. Matt Damon doesn’t just let things slide. Freakin’ Harvard kids…they never learn.
So this here is the latest shaky-cam adrenaline rush by director Paul Greengrass, the same guy behind the shaky-cam awesomeness that was The Bourne Ultimatum. Needless to say, expectations were high going into this one and the whoopass trailer didn’t do much to deter my thoughts that this was gonna be a good way to spend two hours drying off from this past weekend’s apocalyptic weather conditions.
But the more I watched, the more I got to thinking, “This is kinda weird.”
Being that every movie about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is going to be compared to The Hurt Locker from now on, I’m gonna take a slight detour in that direction for just a second to explain what I’m getting at. Even though neither of these movies are the most accurate portrayals of military procedure, the best thing about The Hurt Locker was that, in the end, it had something legitimately poignant and insightful to say about PTSD and the many ways in which “war is a drug”. Call me crazy, but the highlight of that movie for me was Jeremy Renner in the cereal aisle.
Green Zone on the other hand doesn’t really have that. It creates this fictitious story about one Rambo-like soldier’s efforts to expose a military cover-up of the existence of WMD’s in a non-fictitious war, but for all its good intentions, it ‘s ultimately just another action movie. And that’s what bugged me about this movie and movies like The Kingdom, that it felt so Hollywood and that it takes this global conflict we’re currently involved in and turns it into popcorn fare.
Then again, some of the things it touches on are interesting and the action’s not half-bad, so if you’re going into this to kill two hours and aren’t expecting The Hurt Locker 2: Hopped Up on the Napalm, you’ll get your money’s worth.
Matt Damon’s pretty good as our guy Miller (bitchin’ shades, dude!) and so is Greg Kinnear as the uber smarmy government suit/general dickhead of the movie, so that’s nice. Also like the fact that a lot of actual vets from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan were given roles instead of some hippies from the Actor’s Guild or whatever the hell it’s called. A very cool gesture indeed, adds some much-needed credibility to the mix and they do a damn fine job to boot, especially my man Paul Rieckhoff. Dude nailed it!
As an action movie, it’s alright; as a politically charged insight into the war in Iraq & Afghanistan, there’s something to be desired; as sheer entertainment, you could do worse. Green Zone‘s not up to snuff with the rest of Greengrass’ resume, and while I’ve got this nagging sensation that this might be doing more of a disservice to the way we look at “realistic” depictions of war, I still liked it and I still enjoyed myself.
Gotta love that shaky-cam.
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
VERDICT:
9/10 Face Books
Not just the best of the trilogy, but one of the best action movies I’ve seen in ages.
The Bourne Ultimatum is about the same thing Identity and Supremacy were about – former government killing machine/current renegade killing machine with amnesia tries to find out who he really is, who killed his girlfriend and how he came to be such a bonafide destroyer of human bodies before the people behind it all take him out first. Only this time he’s really close to figuring it all out.
Usually rehashing a formula three times in a row isn’t the best idea for any trilogy, but since it’s a damn good formula to begin with that keeps you out of the loop and wanting to know more, this “complaint” is rendered null and void.
Case closed, suckas.
Up until this entry, the Bourne movies have always been a pretty fun and entertaining way to burn two hours, but they never really reached a peak of true awesomeness that separated them from just being well-made action movies on par with the typical Summer blockbuster. Good action, intriguing storyline, solid all-around cool factor, but one of those things you only really need to see once and that’s about it.
Then this one comes along and out of nowhere launches a flying headbutt right through that glass ceiling of cinematic badassery, giving the whole franchise a much-needed hardcore rep that it didn’t have quite before.
Everything gets upped this time around, and, folks, I mean everything.
Maybe I just need to give it another run-through, but back when Paul Greengrass got behind this series with Supremacy, I didn’t think much of it. Definitely wild, but like Identity, it didn’t really stick with me. Now, I’m not sure how many Red Bulls this guy must have been downing when he started directing Ultimatum, but things got instantly more memorable.
The pacing in this movie is simply unreal. It never lingers, it never drags and it never lets its lead foot off the pedal from the minute it starts. Greengrass just makes this sucker flow like an effing tidal wave and the way he films it all with hand-held cameras that throw you right into the action as its all going down makes everything that’s happening on-screen that much more frenetic and intense. Shit is absolutely non-stop and the action scenes are as swayze as they get.
And Paul Rudd is right, Matt Damon totally rocks the shit as Jason Bourne, drop-kicking any and all thoughts of him as being a “Streisand”, not that I ever thought he was anyway. Not much to be said for his acting abilities considering all he has to do is take names, tear suckers down and do it all without breaking a sweat, but all in all, he’s totally legit and does the action hero thing better than ever before.
I like them apples.
Just as Casino Royale was the action movie of ’06, Ultimatum was the freakin’ action movie of ’07 and I still consider them both to be on a very even playing field. It’s not often that a movie is so entertaining and so much fun that it has me doing a double take at my watch when it’s all said and done, but when it does happen, sweet sassy molassy is it sweet. I even saw this with my mom and she thought the exact same thing, so, hey, there’s something for everyone.
The Bourne Ultimatum, man. What a blast.
I don’t know how Green Zone is gonna fare, but it’s fighting one hell of an uphill battle if it has any hope of being better than this. Here’s to hoping that those 12 bucks of mine get put to good use this weekend.
Antichrist (2009)
VERDICT:
6/10 Counterfeit PHDs
You are not ready for this movie. Man, no one is ready for this movie.
Antichrist is about a husband trying to help his grieving wife after their kid falls out a window and dies while they’re preoccupied with doing each other. Being a shrink who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else, the husband decides that the best course of action to help his wife recover is to go spend some time in the one place in the world she fears most: a cabin in the woods where she and their son once spent time together. Lo and behold, the husband realizes a little too late that his psychiatric opinion has the value of a festering turd as they shack up in the woods and some truly bizarro shit starts to go down.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Lars von Trier movie, the last one was probably Breaking the Waves a couple of years ago (which I’ve been meaning to revisit), but if you’ve seen any movie by the guy, chances are you’re like me and still haven’t forgotten the name. See, Lars von Trier doesn’t make movies for you to sit back and enjoy, Lars von Trier makes movies that challenge, disturb and push the envelope so far down your throat that you’ll be crapping out stamps for weeks.
Such is the case with Antichrist, and despite the charming title, my previous run-ins with LvT and the alarming buzz I’ve heard about this movie, I was still very much shocked with what I found myself watching. But before you write this off as a high-brow Hostel, let me justify the 6 out of 10 up there first.
As far as horror movies go, I can’t think of too many entries in the genre that have balls anywhere near as large as Antichrist‘s. Even if I told you every last wacko, fucked up thing that goes down, you might not even believe me and even if you do, you still won’t believe that it’s actually happening. There’s shock value to go around on this one, but it doesn’t feel cheap for once, it feels like there’s purpose behind it even though it’s undoubtedly gonna be a little much for some. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “brave” or anything, it’s just not often that I come across a truly no-holds-barred movie like this that spirals towards the extreme without coming off as absurd.
It’s an arresting two hours in regards to its haunting, yet beautiful visuals coupled with a totally out-there script that’ll make you shudder straight on through, but the actors are really what bring it all together. Willem Dafoe is good as the husband – which is more or less a given – but the Trooper of the New Millennium Award goes to Charlotte Gainsbourg as the wife. I can’t imagine what would compel her or any woman to sign on for this movie after reading the script, but whatever the reason, she really puts her all into it and deserves a lot more recognition than she got. It’s too bad that the Academy would never, ever recognize a movie like this, because she should have at least gotten a Best Actress nod.
But does it work as a horror movie? Oh yeah, it works. Does it work as a meditation on loss? Eh, not so much.
I’m still not really sure what the hell happened during the last 30 or 45 minutes, which is a big part of what held this back from a 7, but that’s also a big part of what makes it all so numbingly eerie and jaw-droppingly strange. Other than that, not really sure what exactly it was that von Trier was trying to say with this, but there’s definitely something there even if it did go right over my head.
Folks, feel free to enlighten me on this one.
I read in an interview with Willem Dafoe that von Trier was in a pretty dark place when he wrote this script, and, boy, he ain’t kiddin’. Antichrist is a hard movie to swallow and even harder to form a real opinion on, but all I know is that it taps into the depths of horror in ways that movies rarely do. Unfortunately it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense either, but get ready for something totally nuts all the same.
And to my surprise, not a sacrilegious movie. At least I don’t think it is…
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
VERDICT:
7/10 Gonzo Road Trips
How Hunter S. Thompson lived for as long as he did, I truly don’t know.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is about a journalist and his attorney who drive on down to Sin City in the early ’70s with a trunk full of uppers, downers, screamers, laughers, rum, tequila and the dreaded ether while on assignment from Rolling Stone to cover a dune buggy race. Before long, the dune buggies take a backseat as these two maniacs spend their little vacation expanding their minds in near-fatal ways on their journey to chase down “the American Dream”.
First time I saw this, I had no idea who Hunter S. Thompson was. As a result, I really had no idea what to make of what this thing or what I was supposed to get out of it. All I knew by the end was that drugs are bad and I should stay the hell away from ether, and if for some reason I ever do find myself tripping balls on ether, I should stay the hell away from carnivals.
Then I got familiar with Thompson. I read through the source material, loved the source material, saw the movie again and had a whole new appreciation for it. My suggestion: hit up the library and follow suit, it makes all the difference in this instance. It’s not about the book being better than the movie (which it incidentally is), it’s just about getting it.
See, this a weird fucking movie, about as weird as a hyper-real, drug-induced nightmare can be without having dead babies crawling on the ceiling a la Trainspotting. This headlong voyage into strange is both the strength and weakness of this movie as director Terry Gilliam does a pretty bang-up job of taking what a lot of people considered an unfilmable novel and turning into something terrifyingly real.
Gilliam does that a lot. That’s why Gilliam kicks ass six ways from Sunday.
But that’s the thing about Fear and Loathing, that for all the ways it does justice to the novel from a visual and narrative standpoint, the whole tone is totally different. In the book, all the drug-fueled trips, hallucinations and hysterics come off as hilarious, entertaining and all the while insightful. It’s not exactly a hey-kids-drugs-are-fun kind of experience, but the overall vibe is more reminiscent of Half-Baked than Requiem for a Dream. The movie, on the other hand, starts out funny enough, but eventually morphs into a dark, depressing haze that’ll make you want to stay away from scratch-and-sniff markers let alone a freshly rolled doobie.
This isn’t really Gilliam’s fault either, it’s just that a lot of what makes the novel funny instead of grim is Thompson’s voice, and even though a lot of the narration in the movie is ripped verbatim from Thompson’s pen, something was lost in translation. Such is often the case when the real driving force behind an awesome book is the guy or gal writing it rather than the story they’re actually telling.
But that’s my only hang-up with this movie. Johnny Depp is freakin’ dead on in every way an actor can be as Thompson’s alter-ego, Dr. Gonzo, Benicio del Toro is quite convincing as Gonzo’s violent Samoan attorney, Raoul Duke, and there’s a handful of cameos by future A-listers Christina Ricci, Cameron Diaz and a balding Tobey Maguire thrown in there for good measure.
Garey Busey, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Hunter Thompson himself also make appearances, and if that doesn’t sell it for ya’, Busey is gonna rip your endocrine system right out of your body.
If you know about Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is definitely something to appreciate and, despite its flaws, Gilliam does a solid job of bringing to the screen one crazy ass Vegas vacation that makes The Hangover look like a lazer tag party at Chuck-E-Cheese. For those who don’t know Thompson, get familiar, stay the hell away from bat country, then go ahead and prep yourself for two hours of sheer insanity.
Marley & Me (2008)
VERDICT:
6/10 Beethovens
Liked this more than I probably should have. I’m as shocked as the rest of you.
Marley & Me is about a journalist who moves to Miami with his wife, settles down at his new job at the local paper and buys that pooch on the poster so he can focus on his career instead of immediately cranking out kids. What seems like a total “smooth operator” move at first quickly backfires when the dog starts tearing up the join and they realize that they have adopted the dog from The Omen.
Pretty standard stuff, nothin’ fancy, but strangely enough, that’s why it works.
The thing is, it’s not really about the dog until the last half-hour or so. Sure, he gets into wacky hijinks, ravenously humps legs and becomes part of the family right off the bat, but despite having his name in the title, Marley’s more like the cute and cuddly “comic relief” of the mix. What they don’t tell you in the trailers is that until the final Act, it’s really just about our everyman journalist John Grogan and his mid-life crisis of sorts as he tries to separate what’s best for his career and what he wants to do with his career while trying to make a life for his soon-to-be family.
Maybe it’s because I would kill to have someone pay me a living wage to write articles about whatever the hell I want each day, but it didn’t take long for me to get really interested in Grogan’s life. And better yet, his life isn’t plagued by corny dialogue, it’s not overdramatic and it’s refreshingly normal. It’s been a while since I’ve seen really pretty, typecasted movie stars playing folks just like you and me.
For once, Owen Wilson isn’t doing the whole Dupree act and Jennifer Aniston isn’t putting on a variation of “The Rachel Face“, and it works in their favor. Even though these two don’t look anything like John or Jennifer Grogan (guessing on Jennifer, couldn’t find a picture), they still do a good job of helping you forget that they could probably buy John or Jennifer Grogan if they wanted to.
Features a good performance by Alan Arkin, too, but that’s nothing new.
Now, I’ve only owned one dog in my day, a Jack Russell Terrier that the breeder so oddly decided to name “Skittles”. It wasn’t until after we got her that my mom and I realized the reason she probably had that name to begin with was because we wouldn’t have been surprised if the breeder had been feeding her actual Skittles by the bucketful. Point is, Skittles was effing nuts, so nuts that she eventually had to be put on doggie Prozac so she could function like a dog that didn’t have ADHD and a mean meth addiction.
Sorry for the digression, just thought I’d throw that in there ’cause it’s kinda sorta pertinent.
But, yeah, never had much of a connection with my own dog, but dogs in general are pretty awesome. With that being said, this one didn’t really get the waterworks going for me like it probably would have if Skittles had only been downing Beggin’ Strips, but for the rest of you puppy lovers out there, keep the Kleenex close at hand.
Marley & Me isn’t doing anything new, it just doesn’t do it poorly and that goes a long way. It’s not a funny movie, but it doesn’t really seem like it’s trying all too hard to be one either, so it’s forgivable, especially since you can pretty much predict all the cooky stuff Marley’s gonna do before the movie even starts. Might not be the most mentally exhausting two hours out there, but an enjoyable two hours nonetheless.
Labs are the bomb.
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