Well, here we are, winding down the clock on 2014. To think, back when the year started, after a stellar 2013 cinema season, we though this year would be hopeless with a hint of Lego Movie. Instead, we’re looking at a transcendent year of films (well, besides Transcendence, anyway) that cover all genres, all time periods, and in the case of today’s review, time itself. We also tackle the two-parter finale of the fate of Panem, catch up with Valeria Cherish and see whether Too Many Cooks has gotten too much hype. That and all the news you need in this week’s Buzz.
Movies: Its important with certain films, particularly those that contain a polarizing theme or artist, to know where the critic stands before reading their review. This matter has been previously touched on before in this author’s review for The Expendables 3, and given director Christopher Nolan’s recent trip along that roller coaster of praised/overpraised/polarizing (made worse by his militant, death-threat wielding fan base), its important to clarify this author’s previous take on Nolan so as to better aid the reader in understanding their take on Interstellar.
While The Dark Knight and Memento are undeniable masterworks, the the Hitchcockian aspirations ofFollowing and The Prestige are admirable and thoroughly enjoyable, this critic has felt Nolan was on a downward spiral after TDK, which itself was less a tribute to Nolan’s singular craft so much as a convergence, an “all the planets in alignment” bit of magic where every element from Goyer’s script to Ledger’s Oscar-winning performance all came together in such a complex and perfectly fragile arrangement that one thing out of place could have ruined the film. Yet Inception, in this author’s opinion, was painful overrated, unnecessarily complicated, and a nonsense display of “Look how smart I am” trying to anchor itself in a relationship which had no chemistry, and bland, cardboard performances. Yet, to question the creator of the Holy Bat was to incur the wrath of the Nolan leg-bumper fanboys, and even mores when this and other critics were silenced on Rotten Tomatoes after death threats were made by the aforementioned fanboys to any who dared give the third installment of the Dark Knight Trilogy a negative review (note that none of these fans had actually seen the film yet, but all were already prepped to call it the best film of the year, because the public is nothing if not objective). Of course, time has begun to show to all but the most fiercely leg-humping that The Dark Knight Rises is easily Nolan’s worst film, a hodgepodge of ideas and imagery riddled with plot holes and terrible incoherent moments without a single bit of understanding for the source material, as though the director didn’t really want to make the film at all. The poor quality of the film, mixed with the ardent love of its advocates, has created a sort of animosity amongst many who, when early reports of Interstellar were less than stellar, were sharpening their knives to take down the sacred calf of cinema. Those of us, like myself, who kept trying to assure the fanboys jumping for joy over the first sounds of Bane’s asinine voice from leaked footage that the film could indeed suck were ready to be able to rip into Nolan’s newest, which looked poised from the adverts to be even more overly, unnecessarily complicated, full of weak sentimentality from a man who doesn’t understand emotion, and ultimately be the downfall of the over-hyped, self-important auteur.
Instead, I found it to be an absolute delight. It was powerful, moving, and utterly cinematic. Admittedly, while Nolan shows his influences a bit more obviously than ever before (lifting shots straight from 2001, or setting up the NASA hideout and its rogue discoverer just like Dagny Taggart and Galt’s Gulch in Atlas Shrugged), and there are some hockey elements, the film works as a film, as a piece of pure cinema, self-aware without an ounce of self-consciousness like classic Spielberg used to do. Unashamed to be sentimental, uncomplicatedly and necessarily technical, full of astounding moments of beauty and sincerity, begging its viewers not to scrutinize or philosophize, but rather to dream. To hope. To gaze upward in wonder, the kind of wonderment the movies used to inspire before the “dark and gritty” movement Nolan himself popularized.
The film could be picked apart, all its qualities weighed out before you, the reader. But it would serve better purpose to say that even an extreme Nolan detractor can see this film for the extra ordinary spectacle that it is, so those wishing to tear it down might have a different, less objective motive at heart, and you truly should see it for yourself (though see it in 35mm, for that true vintage cinema feel, and skip the IMAX, whose sound mix issues are a totally legitimate complaint).
——
What sets the Hunger Games franchise apart from all other YA films (Divergent, Twilight, and towards the end, yes, even Harry Potter) is its commitment to quality. The films are well-shot, well-paced, well-acted. Everything seems committed to making a quality product, nothing done for the sake of making a quick buck off some eager teens. Well, until now. Just like the final Harry Potter film, or the final Twilight film, the team behind the Hunger Games has decided to split the final book of the franchise into two parts, thereby killing the narrative flow of the surprisingly well-written novel Catching Fire. All the action apparently got pushed to the second film, and the character moments, while enjoyable, are hardly worth the price of admission. Sit this one out until it hits Netflix, then go see Part 2 on the big screen. No point paying twice for one movie (considering we’re now going to pay Peter Jackson a third time for the privilege of finishing a movie that started two years ago).
——
TV: “Give her another take! Give her another take!” Such was the chant of the studio audience for “Room and Bored” the sitcom within a sitcom that Valerie Cherish (Lisa Kudrow) uses to try and relaunch her career on HBO’s cult series The Comeback. Though The Comeback was initially met with mixed reviews and was cancelled after 13 episodes, it had a loyal following who continued the cry for “another take” for almost ten years, and finally HBO relented, and gave The Comeback a comeback? So is it worth it? Well, I suppose it depends who you ask, and whether they felt it deserved it at all.
When The Comeback first aired, critics were mixed, criticizing it for its dry tone and lack of originality in the premise, though Entertainment Weekly would, years later, latch on to the cult obsession by calling it one of the 10 Best Shows of the Decade, and fans are quick to describe the show as “ahead of its time” and compare it to the holy grail of “ahead of its time”, Arrested Development. The thing is? Those criticisms were valid.
Full disclosure: This critic hated The Comeback when it first aired, found it humorless and grating, playing only on the humor of a character’s awkwardness and desperation to be loved, similar to what The Office did with Michael Scott, except robbing us of any of the humanity or pathos Carrell embed in his bumbling boss. However, in order to properly review the second season premiere, and in response to the myriad of “ahead of its time” declarations, I decided to binge watch the entire first season again, now in the time it was apparently meant to be in. And yet I found the show to be just as irritating and insufferable as ever. So with that context out there, let’s take a look at the premiere of season 2, though fans of the first run should likely take this opinion with a grain of salt (but feel free to comment below, as it would be interesting to know if The Comeback 2.0 satisfies those who wanted it in the first place).
Of course, by now the reader is expecting the negative review, and sadly that expectation can’t be defied. Yes, The Comeback Season 2 is bad (at least what’s been aired thus far), and in fact much worse than the original. Gone is the somewhat engaging dynamic of Valerie trying to control the reality crew filming her, and trying to connect with showrunner Jane (Laura Silverman). Instead, Valerie has amassed her own crew to film her in the hopes of getting picked up for another reality show. Where in the first series, the humor rested in Valerie being forced to take a supporting role in a bad sitcom to try and revive a faltering career (a believable premise, and one experienced by many an aging performer, which gave the show a sort of insider feel), this season reeks of desperation, and not just from Valerie but from the show itself, trying to find some reason for being. In place of it realistic premise the first time around, this season finds Valerie infuriated that her antagonist from season one, the smug sitcom writer Paulie G, has apparently gone through rehab for heroin and is creating an HBO series about his life called Seeing Red about a drug-addicted sitcom writer and his battles with an aging TV star named Mallory Church. Valerie attempts to cease production only to find out she has been offered the role of Malerie, which she accepts. So this is what we’ll be dealing with this season, an absurd batch of meta-humor on meta-humor wrapped in an insufferable amount of cameos (the premiere alone brought us Andy Cohen, Ru Paul and Carla Hall as themselves). Whatever charm or sincerity was within The Comeback, whatever sense of purpose was within it, its absent in this second season, which seems a desperate attempt from HBO to have a hit on their hands besides Game of Thrones. Perhaps eventually I may learn to love The Comeback Season 1, as many insisted I would. I can even see why people would have been fond of it, vague elements protruding that people could latch onto it. As for Season Two, however, to quote the catchphrase Valerie so often repeated “I don’t even want to see that!”
——
News: After a more Bourne than Bond reboot with Casino Royale and an abysmal follow-up (perhaps the third worst in the entire franchise), nobody but the most die-hard fans of destruction really wanted them to trot out the seemingly dead horse that was once MI6’s best agent for another flogging. Yet Sam Mendes stepped up to the plate and knocked it out of the park with Skyfall, and he’s returning to the helm for what’s shaping up to be an even better installment in the rejuvenated franchise, as 007 has just gained some new cast mates that make for an extraordinarily promising dynamic. First off is the ever important role of the Bond girl, previously a role occupied by the likes of Eva Green, Halle Berry and Denise Richards, yet this time around it appears they’ve gone for someone with a fair amount of talent, as Lea Seydoux hs been all but formally confirmed as the love interest of the man with a license to kill. While Seydoux may not be a household name here in the states, odds are you’ve seen her, with bit parts in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, however she’s best known for her work in Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol, and for her remarkable performance in the Palme D’Or winning film, Blue Is The Warmest Color, for which she became one of only two actresses in history to receive the award, which is traditionally reserved for the film’s director (the only actress to receive the honor was her co-star from the film, Adele Exarchopoulos).
It’s shaping up to be a Basterds reunion on the 24th Bond film as another alum is set to join the cast, this one far more well known to the American public, but only in the last 5 years. Winner of two Oscars, one for the villainous Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s WWII action film, and one for King Schultz, a bounty hunter on a mission in the director’s follow-up Django Unchained, Christoph Waltz has just the perfect blend of charming menace to thrive on the dynamics of the typical Bond script, no matter what role he’s in (though its safe to assume it will be a villainous one, since that’s typically the juiciest role, as fellow Oscar wine Javier Bardem showed the last time out). Whether Waltz is friend or foe, or indeed a reboot of Bond’s old nemesis Blofeld, is yet to be seen. All we know for sure is, with this cast, the film is bound to be one hell of a ride.
——
Short Film: We couldn’t not talk about Too Many Cooks here. The short film is an under appreciated art form, one we here at Man of the Hour have been trying to shine a light on. So when one rises to the surface and indeed conquers the internet for a brief moment (before Kim Kardashian had to take her pants off and steal the spotlight from our beloved Smarf), we gotta give our take on it.
Airing on Adult Swim at 4 am between actual infomercials, some perplexed Redditor thankfully uploaded it to Youtube and let the world bask in the madcap dissolution of structure crafted by the team behind the AS show Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell. Beginning like a typical 80’s sitcom intro, it introduces a predictable but amusing gag that Too Many Cooks has too many cast members, before it begins to brilliantly switch genres, all with a sense of dread and menace looming in the background. If you’ve not yet seen the short screened round the world, please do so now to avoid the spoilers.
You good now? Good.
The brilliance of Too Many Cooks is how infinitely rewatchable it is. It’s Twin Peaks influenced killer with the unreadable name (though I’m sure some intrepid viewers will dissect every name from within the tracking scramble) may seem to come out of nowhere when first introduced in the G.I. Joe segment, but indeed upon rewatching you discover him leering in the background from practically the very beginning, the darkness lurking just beneath the perfect image, echoing a sentiment David Lynch has expressed since Blue Velvet, but with a very Adult Swim style of stoner humor. One can appreciate it for its bizarre collapse of sanity in the vein of Don Hertzfeld’s Oscar-nominated short Rejected, or see it as a bold attack on the brainless, soul-crushing aspects of television, like the cult-hit Don’t Hug Me, I’m Scared. Indeed, one could just get high and laugh at the repeated shots of the falcon. It seems to strangely never lose its appeal, the well of things to take from it and enjoy or deconstruct has yet to run dry. The creator admitted that he had some deeper meanings in mind when he created it, but didn’t want to elaborate on them to avoid seeming “pretentious”. So grab some friends, gather round the laptop, and discuss whether Smarf pushed the button or not, becauseToo Many Cooks is well worth a watch, and another watch, and another watch…
No comments:
Post a Comment