Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Review #2408: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Cast: 

Michael Cera (Scott Pilgrim and Nega Scott), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Ramona Flowers), Kieran Culkin (Wallace Wells), Anna Kendrick (Stacey Pilgrim), Brie Larson (Natalie V. "Envy" Adams), Alison Pill (Kim Pine), Aubrey Plaza (Julie Powers), Johnny Simmons ("Young" Neil Nordegraf), Mark Webber (Stephen Stills), Ellen Wong (Knives Chau), with Satya Bhabha (Matthew Patel), Chris Evans (Lucas Lee), Brandon Routh (Todd Ingram), Mae Whitman (Roxanne "Roxy" Richter), Keita Saito (Ken Katayanagi), Shota Saito (Kyle Katayanagi), and Jason Schwartzman (Gideon "G-Man" Graves) Directed by Edgar Wright (#971 - Baby Driver, #1537 - Shaun of the Dead)

Review: 

"We thought it should play out like a musical in a way in terms of the fights are not dissimilar to the songs. I always thought there were a lot of martial arts films that were like musicals, so we wanted to take that further. Ya know, in a Gene Kelly film when he performs an amazing routine, at the end of the scene no one goes, 'Oh my god, that was fucking amazing!' The song is about something, and then there might be some dialogue at the end that is also about that theme. And that's kind of how this works where people have these huge fights – and it's kind of like how it is in the books – where everything goes back to normal, and there's a little reaction to what just happened, but there's no sort of mourn the dead."

Yes, it is weird to see how time flies by to say a movie from the 2010s is now 15 years old. It serves as an adaptation of the series of graphic novels of the same name that had been published in six volumes from 2004 to 2010, as written and drawn by Bryan Lee O'Malley, who had been inspired by various works ranging from Ranma 1/2, Koudelka (layouts) and other manga. Around the time after the publication of the first volume came the inklings of maybe adapting it to film, and Edgar Wright (of the then-released Shaun of the Dead, which naturally was followed up with Hot Fuzz [2007]) was approached and he liked the idea because he liked the books, with one factor being that he noted that with a few exceptions*, there hadn't been a "bigger film that dealt in sort of like a comedy comic book film...combining the mundane with the fantastical.". Wright and Michael Bacall wrote the screenplay for the film while O'Malley was involved with "bits and pieces" of the process (in particular, the ending had influence by O'Malley over the original planned ending, since the movie was coming out in the wake of the release of the last volume in July of 2010). The movie was inspired by a litany of movies ranging from Danger: Diabolik [1968] to Phantom of the Paradise [1974] (particularly with its villain, consider that). Apparently, Universal Pictures didn't know how to market the movie to audiences; the movie was first screened in July of 2010 before being released in theaters starting with America on August 13, 2010 and it was not a major success at the time. However, as one probably guessed, it has developed a following. The entire cast reprised their roles for an animated TV show (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off) that had a handful of episodes in 2023.

It probably is a movie that gets better and better for those who really like what the movie is selling in terms of light fun in an era where people still wondered what the hell was the difference between "geek" and "nerd" anymore. It probably helps that there was a pretty talented cast involved* who happens to be pretty enjoyable to view on screen. For me...it was fine. It rides a good deal of highs and a few lows for 112 minutes that generally has the enthusiasm to make one at least see themselves somewhere in the entertaining ensemble and visual sequences. You might as well call it a distinct comic or also video game movie with the fact that it actually takes the time to look like a comic (i.e. sound effect onomatopoeia) to go along with its video game logic with, well, handling action sequences. You either roll with its punches (some visual and some in jokes such as tricking a vegan into drinking half-and-half) or, well, you don't. Call it silly, but it does take a bit of time to really, truly, root for that title character. At least his hang-ups are more interesting to think about in everyman weirdness than say, Woody Allen*. Actually, I take that back, it does take a bit of time to also appreciate Ramona beyond calling her a flake (and in turn, calling Scott a little worm)*. But I like Cera and Winstead just fine, so there's that. It's an interesting push-and-pull thing where one is juggling seeing the life of our guy and the folks around him, and I think it works out pretty well in the fact that there isn't a weak spot amongst the folks. In particular, it is fun to see Culkin and Plaza every now and then because of their natural timing that just is really funny in snappy charm (look, how many folks have lines where they are censored with a black box on purpose). Chau actually is a bit funny in her own path of realization beyond just hanging around in the ides of youth and so on. Of the group of "Evil Exes", Evans and Schwartzman do stick out the best, namely because there are a handful of laughs in bravado from the former and the Phil Spector imitation in the latter that keep the movie rolling along just right. It is a movie that has a boundless charm that with the right mindset in mind for the viewer would be enough to deflect any lingering quibbles with the movie. Lack of stakes? Eh, its a movie about a guy getting a hold of himself beyond just having the same expectations of oneself that happens to need to turn opponents into pixels, stakes are for "suspense" movies. It just happens to be a movie fit for casual enjoyment, and it likely developed a cult following because people really did come around to viewing the movie for all of its little quirks that is admirable to see in commitment. Fifteen years later, we may very well see further people get latched onto the movie and its grabbing of the times it was made in a further interesting light fifteen further years down the line.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Specifically, Ghost World and American Splendor, as noted here.

**Imagine saying a film had two future Academy Award winners in its cast and it is located in the supporting cast with Culkin and Larson.

***I will state that I did know exactly one person who liked changing their hair color to blue. She liked women and even shacked up with a married person. It's too bad she was a flake, she seemed like a friend at one point in time.

****Speaking of people with an "interesting" attraction to young women. Okay, I stretched that joke, but I don't like that little cretin.

Trap (2024).

Review #2238: Trap.

Cast: 

Josh Hartnett (Cooper), Ariel Donoghue (Riley), Saleka Shyamalan (Lady Raven), Alison Pill (Rachel), Hayley Mills (Dr. Josephine Grant), Jonathan Langdon (Jamie), Mark Bacolcol (Spencer), Marnie McPhail (Jody's mom), and Kid Cudi (the Thinker) Written and Directed by M. Night Shyamalan (#039 - The Sixth Sense, #902 - Split, #1183 - Unbreakable, #1184 - Glass, #2164 - Signs)

Review: 

"For me, being original and having certain aspects, let's say like highest quality audience movies is what I want to make, and being proud and honored to make audience movies. Maybe other people might think of genre as a lesser art form. I don't think of it that way. "

Strangely, for a month called "Acknowledged in August", this film may actually qualify as worth being acknowledged because of the apparent divide in what people think of this film. It's interesting to see the progression of interest in the films of M. Night Shyamalan, if you think about it, particularly since this month happens to be the 25th anniversary of the release of his first major film in The Sixth Sense (1999). Even among the films (Trap is the 13th of his since the release of Sense) considered as part of his "lower tier", one always seems to have plenty to say about a filmmaker that really doesn't pack as many twists in his films as people think. At any rate, Shyamalan has stated that the film was inspired in part by conversations he had with his daughter about the nature of concert and theatrical experiences being similar and what could happen if one puts those together. Basically, this is how one gets the pitch of "The Silence of the Lambs at a Taylor Swift concert". Of course, in real life, one really can find actual examples of crook-catching in say, "Operation Flagship", which was an actual sting operation that was successful in capturing a select group of criminals tricked into a giveaway involving football tickets.

Sure, I understand why this particular film will vary in enjoyment from person to person. It relies heavily on its primary actor to carry the film that is mostly enclosed in one location to go along with a third act that will probably try the patience of those who seem to have a checklist for thrillers. That being said, I enjoyed it pretty well as a psychological thriller that, well, has fun. I actually found a few parts worth chuckling along with because of the sheer curiosity that comes with positioning the whole film on a family man who just happens to be a murderer. It is a cat-and-mouse game where one is firmly watching the cat that decides at some point to just throw up the board for tongue-in-cheek enjoyment, but your milage obviously will vary because, well, heaven forbid a movie play around with what you might see in a thriller. One rolls with the concert sequence in the most singular sense from the frenzy of people to the array of cell phones that love to record the stuff they are already seeing while having the tension about just what could turn next in the mind of someone who could be called the "friendly neighborhood serial killer". To put it mildly, Hartnett is the star attraction in a way I really should've seen coming, because there are quite a few thrillers (or horror, whatever) involving actors playing against type, and Hartnett plays it with such unnerving confidence. For better or worse, his performance dominates the film where one, well, doesn't have too much to say about the cast around him, although Donoghue is about on par for what one probably expects from a starstruck person. In an industry where quite a few folks could be accused of "nepotism", I can't really fault this for being a father-daughter piece in terms of one writing and performing their own music, although I can't really say the music is any better in terms of energy (it isn't Purple Rain, to put it mildly) than her part to play in the third act, which is adequate at best. Sure, Pill and Mills are fine, but one gets the feeling that in all of the routine-playing, only Hartnett has the resolve to make the viewer care one way or the other about just where it all is going to finish; of course, with Langdon, he provides the most curious moment of the film in dropping exposition along with seeing Hartnett interact with another person not related to him (and a certain subsequent scene). In general, the 105-minute runtime makes for a pretty neat package that grips one's attention in the tension of what could and could not happen with so many people around: consider the effort taken to get an apron at one point by possibly ruining someone's life in laying oil onto a fryer and how the film briskly moves along. The third act moves it on to a different type of trail because of the fact that the movie has decided one can't have it all set in a concert, but I like the shaky feeling that comes with the blurring of family man and butcher man when it comes to figuring out what is the difference between a man of pieces and the pieces that make up a person. In the end, "the process" is what I care for in a film, and I think Shyamalan's attempts at making a thriller within a concert is an engaging one worth following all the way to the end because of Hartnett's commitment to it all. I can't say I know the work of Shyamalan as well as the next guy, but I will say that he sure made a worthy attempt at a ride for the audience to sit and absorb.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Next up: Oscar (1991), the John Landis comedy with Sylvester Stallone

Goon.

Review #1693: Goon.

Cast: 

Seann William Scott (Doug "The Thug" Glatt), Liev Schreiber (Ross "The Boss" Rhea), Alison Pill (Eva), Jay Baruchel (Pat), Marc-André Grondin (Xavier Laflamme), Eugene Levy (Dr. Glatt), David Paetkau (Ira Glatt), Kim Coates (Coach Ronnie Hortense), Richard Clarkin (Gord Ogilvey), Jonathan Cherry (Marco "Belchie" Belchior), Ricky Mabe (John Stevenson), Georges Laraque (Huntington), Curt Keilback (Rod McCaudry), and Larry Woo (Park Kim) Directed by Michael Dowse.

Review: 

There is plenty to go around when it comes to hockey, the good and bad. Referees, dubious team management, the feasibility of a sport that can be wracked with head injuries, and the innate ability of bad timing within television broadcasting. But, I imagine there is something interesting to say about the role of the goon, an enforcer that is tasked with responding to violent play in kind. On the one hand, one doesn't really want to see their guy get decked out and potentially suffer short-term injuries or even worse in the future. On the other hand, the violence is what one can dig when it comes to seeing goons take one out on each other for the good of their team. There are plenty of examples to list, such as Slap Shot (1977) with the Hanson Brothers (played by real-life hockey players Jeff Carlson, Steve Carlson and Dave Hanson). Of course, there is also the case of enforcer John Scott, a beneficiary of voting for the NHL All-Star Game (via fan online voting, which as a fan I deem embarrassing for all leagues despite doing it anyway, mostly for baseball), or infamous enforcers like Marty McSorley and Todd Bertuzzi, but the real life inspiration for this film comes from the exploits of Doug "The Hammer" Smith, who co-wrote Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey with Adam Frattasio. Smith played for seven teams over the course of six seasons after being encouraged by Frattasio to try enforcing after boxing with the Golden Gloves; Jay Baruchel and Evan Goldberg (who you might recognize as the co-writer of films such as Superbad (2007) with Seth Rogen) wrote the screenplay for the film, one mostly shot in the province of Manitoba, and it seems appropriate to have a Canadian at the helm for director with Michael Dowse, directing his fifth feature (his most notable feature was likely his first with FUBAR (2002), a cult hit shot in digital).

So, here we are with a hockey movie for folks who want a few raunchy chuckles while seeing quite a few fights and blood to spare from the ol' hockey game. Strangely enough, this was not actually a hit with audiences upon initial release (making just barely half of its $12 million budget), but it became a bit of a hit with video releases that ended up with a sequel being greenlit in Goon: Last of the Enforcers (2017). There is probably a small comparison to be made to films like Slap Shot or Superbad (2007). I guess this can be a compliment, despite the fact that what we have here is a warmly crude average movie. It is probably the strangest example of a movie that is so earnest in its attempts at balancing heart and grimey charm. When it comes to "Canadian nice", I'd say this is a pretty good example of it, at least for a movie featuring a guy who finds his calling in beating folks up on the ice rink. Look, I care about what I see here, but I don't feel that I care enough beyond just saying it is okay - I think it is the cult hit effect, where if one hears about the notices, the expectations sometimes just won't meet the (loose) reality. The best things about the movie are Scott and Schreiber, really, and that generally will result in a good thing if one is up for it (because the journey is what matters most), and I guess it is interesting enough as a sports movie to go with some chuckles for a mild 92 minute movie. Scott plays the lead role with earnest curiosity that rolls with a film parading clichés as one might expect without being swept into staleness, friendly to what goes on around him. Schreiber provides a useful contrast within the theatrical ice-hitman in careful brooding interest amidst the fights. Pill serves fine with her offbeat chemistry when paired with Scott, which works alright for small moments off the ice. Baruchel gets to play the loudmouth, which might prove familiar for those who follow a sport intently (in theory). Grondin eventually ekes a few interesting moments, although really it is Coates as the blathering coach that generates the most interest (again though, sometimes the cliché roles work the best). As a whole, the hockey action is fine, the comedy and the atmosphere prove fine, the fighting is relatively reliable, and yet here I am wondering why I didn't really think of it as anything pretty good. It is as inevitable as when one watches Slap Shot, but somehow there is something more involving in that film that I can't quite quantify. Maybe it is the sensibility of the filmmaker (George Roy Gill vs Dowse), or maybe it is something more, but when it comes to hockey movies, there are a few good ones one can sport out and consider for fun. In that regard, Goon makes for a useful experience to sit around with, hearty enough in sticking its love letter to a hockey goon fit for the Canadian flavor.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Ah yes, the Stanley Cup is upon us once again. Tampa Bay, Montreal. Easy choice: Go Habs.